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A BOOK OF WORTHIES 




' It is tJic generous spirit who, when brought 
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought 
Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought ; 
Whose high endeavours are an inward light. 
Making the path before him always bright." 

Wordsworth. "The Happy Warrior.' 



A 

BOOK OF WORTHIES 

t 

GA THERED 

AND NOW WRITTEN ANEW 

BY 

THE AUTHOR OF "THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE." 

Cm 



'J3 0)n S* 







Jfmibmt : 
M ACMILLAN AND C O. 

1869. 

y/ie Right of Translation and Reproduction is reserz'ed. 



6r 

Ml 



London : 

K Clay, Sous, and Taylor, Printers, 

Bread Street Hill. 



^ 



PREFACE. 

THE NINE WORTHIES. 

In old times, when brave men had little time to read, and 
fewer books, they still kept clusters of glorious examples 
gathered from all times, to light them on the way to 
deeds of virtue. 

Such were the Seven Champions of Christendom ; the 
Dozipairs, or Twelve Peers of France ; the Seven Wise 
Masters ; and, above all, the Nine Worthies. These 
nine were, three from Israel— namely, Joshua, David,, 
and Judas Maccabaeus ; three from Heathenesse — to wit, 
Hector, Alexander, and Julius Caesar; and three from 
Christendom — Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey de 
Bouillon. This last was quite a recent personage when 
he was reckoned among the Worthies ; and whereas we 
live full eight hundred years after him, and have rather 
more knowledge of ancient history than the original 
inventor of the Nine Worthies, whosoever he may be, 
it would be hard if we could not bring together nine 
times nine of thos^ noble characters, who in all times 
and ages have reflected back upon their brethren that 
Divine Image in which their first father was made. 

Perhaps, too, our judgment of what constitutes 
u Worthies " differs a little from that of him who col- 
lected the first nine. Caesar hardly seems to us as 
worthy as he was great, and Hector and Arthur were 



vi PREFACE. 

no doubt images far clearer in the imaginations of our 
chivalrous ancestors than we dare to make them. 
Even Karl der Crosse, though great and worthy enough 
in his true self, is a widely different personage from the 
Charlemagne of their fancy. But where our means of 
judging are much the same as those of the old admirer 
of the great Nine, our conclusions are much the same. 
He has selected the noblest instances he knew of great, 
good, and true men and " happy warriors," and, so far 
as we may, we follow his guidance in our choice. 

In fact, ever since sin came into the world, this earth 
has been a battle-field. Sometimes the fight is altogether 
between the evil and the good warring for the will, but 
often the bodily powers must take their part in the 
conflict, as well as the mental ones. And whereas 
these are outward and visible, the courage, the strokes, 
and the sufferings of the combatants displayed before 
our eyes, they have become as it were the symbols of 
the unseen inner conflict common to every one, whether 
living in times of external peace or war. The character- 
istics of the Hero, or the Worthy, are the characteristics - 
of every true and rightminded man, woman, and child ; 
but there is room in them for infinite variety, and the 
special form of heroism has had again and again to 
vary with the period and circumstances that called it 
into visible action. 

What those qualities are that make up the Worthy or 
Hero we will not here say ; we will instead trace them 
out in the life of the first of the Nine, the type and pattern 
of all Heroes, and in some respects the most honoured 
of all. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

JOSHUA I 

DAVID 19 

HECTOR 53 

ARISTIDES . 70 

NEHEMIAH 92 

XENOPHON 108 

EPAMINONDAS I4I 

ALEXANDER 154 

MARCUS CURIUS DENTATUS 230 

CLEOMENES 260 

SCIPIO AFRICANUS . 279 

JUDAS MACCABEUS 326 

julius CiESAR 349 



JOSHUA. 

B.C. 1536— 1426. 

What are the qualities that make a Hero? Let us 
study our first hero, and we shall see them manifested in 
the clearest light. Courage is, as all would say, the first 
essential ; but it must not be the mere courage of a lion 
or a bull — the consciousness of strength passionately 
exerted ; it must be courage based on faith, exercised in 
resolute obedience and, tried by patience, as well as bold 
to dare. It must likewise be tender to the weak, and 
stedfast in its promises. 

And the first hero who became a leader of the wars of 
the Lord was surely an example of these things. 

Hoshea, the son of Nun, was born of the tribe of 
Ephraim, in Egypt, in the time of the severest bondage ; 
but the name chosen for him by his parents expressed 
their hope, for it signified " Salvation," or, " He will save." 
The tribe of Ephraim seems to have been settled in a 
part of Egypt exposed to much danger. Indeed, the whole 
land of Goshen, lying between the Nile and the Wilder- 
ness, seems to have been given to the sons of Israel that 
they might be ready to defend Egypt from the attacks of 
the wild nations of the desert. Ephraim, the more favoured 
son of Joseph, suffered greatly in a battle between his sons 
and the men of Gath, who had come down to take their 
cattle. His three sons all perished in the fight, and the 
bereaved man " mourned many days," even when a son of 
B 



2 THE BOOK OF 

his old age was born to him, whom in the sadness of his 
heart he named " Beriah," because it went evil with his 
house. 

This Beriah was the ancestor of Ho shea, and it may 
be supposed, from the Ephraimites being exposed to the 
attacks of the Gittites, that they were settled near the 
borders, and thus, though in more danger from the enemies 
outside, would be less oppressed and forced to servile work 
than their brethren in the interior. At any rate their 
numbers were large, and their spirit does not seem to 
have been broken. Through all their two hundred years 
of suffering they had still that prime blessing that the 
dying Jacob had called down upon the head of Joseph, 
and on the crown of the head of him who was separate 
from his brethren ; and as their choicest treasure they 
guarded the remains of Joseph, which they hoped yet to 
place in the inheritance bequeathed to him and them at 
Shechem. 

Such was the far-away hope in which the young Hoshea 
grew up, and when he had arrived at the prime of manhood 
the long hoped-for day began at length to dawn. 

There stood among the broken and bowed down Israel- 
ites one who long before had descended from the Royal 
court to share their afflictions and revive their forgotten 
hopes. Then Hoshea had not been born, or had been an 
infant, and had had no share in their rejection of the 
leader who offered himself. Now he was of full age, able 
and ready to accept the promise of deliverance which 
Moses had brought from the desert, from the mouth of 
God himself. "The people bowed the head and wor- 
shipped." But there was a heavy trial of patience and 
faith ere the time of freedom came. The first consequence 
of the request that the people might go out into the 
Wilderness only led to greater severity from their oppres- 
sors, in which the superiors, or foremen, among the 



WORTHIES. 3 

heavily-laden slaves were the greatest sufferers. The trust 
and hope of some failed. Others were upheld by the 
wonderful tokens of Divine power, bringing ruin and 
destruction on the Egyptians after every refusal to let the 
people go, and keeping the Israelites exempt from the 
peril always in such a manner as to show that the 
plagues were no chance visitations falling indiscri- 
minately, but were guided to strike alone those destined 
for them. 

Then came that night to be much remembered, when 
every believing Israelitish family were awake, in travelling 
garb, eating their meal of the roasted lamb beneath the 
bloodmarked threshold, till at midnight rose the great cry, 
echoed from stone-built palace to reedy hut, from wan- 
derer's tent to gloomy dungeon, as the first-born in every 
house devoid of that bloody mark lay dead at one fear- 
ful moment. 

Up rose the Israelites. Then, while terror and dismay 
still were on the bereaved land, they were ready to march 
and win their freedom before the reaction of revenge should 
have set in. When that time came, and the King of Egypt 
and his horses and chariots were pursuing after them, 
they were on the sea-shore, with the dark, ruddy, purple 
waves before them ; and beyond, the wild, terrific, white, 
black, and crimson peaks and gloomy ravines of the waste 
howling wilderness. 

Through the parted waves of that sea they marched, 
and from the opposite shore they saw their enemies over- 
whelmed by the waters and lie dead on the shore. These 
were the scenes that were the training of Hoshea, the son 
of Nun, in common with all his fellow-countrymen ; but 
that it was a rare spirit is shown by the fact, that of all 
the six hundred thousand who witnessed the marvels, but 
one single heart was found that gathered strength and 
faith like Hoshea's. Here it is that Hoshea first appears 
B 2 



4 THE BOOK OF 

in his individual character as the warrior hero. The 
manna had begun to fall, the water had sprung from the 
rock at the touch of Moses' rod, and the multitude thus 
sustained were threading their way through the Wadys, 
walled in with lofty marble rocks, when one of the robber 
tribes of the desert came on them. The Amalekites, 
savage marauders, fierce, wild, reckless, and lawless, such 
as are the Bedouins now, swarmed round the multitude, 
and cut off the stragglers, the faint and weary, or feeble, 
with a remorseless cruelty, hateful to God and man alike. 
And in Rephidim — apparently the fair oasis of Wady 
Feiran, a wider valley, with springs of water and palm-trees 
— these deadly foes were mustered to destroy that host of 
newly-escaped unwarlike slaves, encumbered with women 
and children, and with herds and cattle and loads of jewels, 
that made them a tempting prey. 

It was to Hoshea that Moses committed the choice and 
the leadership of the men who were to fight with Amalek. 
The great Lawgiver himself had a more mysterious and 
typical part to fulfil when he went apart to the top of the 
hill with his brother and his sister's husband, and stretched 
out his hands all day in intercession for this people. In 
the strength of that intercession Hoshea fought that whole 
day. It is in the strength and faith of a like but unfailing 
intercession that every subsequent hero has fought and 
won. We may picture to ourselves the hills around, in 
shape and colour like flames, the green vale, the tents of 
the anxious Israelites, the savage hordes on their swift 
steeds, with long lances and floating striped garments, with 
hoods drawn low over their fierce eyes, the hosts of Israel 
scantily armed with the spear, the arrow, the straight 
sword, the tall-pointed cap, the leathern breastplate of 
Egypt, the bullock emblem of the standard of Joseph 
firmly upheld, wavering for a time as the mortal inter- 
cessor's arms grew weary ; but again recovering ground, 



WORTHIES. 5 

and by set of sun beginning the first of its many 
victories. 

Hoshea was the victorious General, the hero of the host, 
who had cleared the path of Israel from the tormenting 
robbers. Nevertheless, he remained as Moses' minister 
or personal attendant. When Israel was encamped at the 
foot of the awful mountain covered with the cloud, whence 
proceeded lightnings, thunders, trumpet-blasts, and that 
most mighty of all voices proclaiming the Eternal Law, 
the voice that the people entreated not to hear again, it 
was Hoshea alone who with Moses ascended the moun- 
tain, even to the cloud that veiled the summit. Moses 
entered within the cloud. There he received the Tables of 
stone written with the finger of God. There he talked 
with the Almighty, face to face ; there he saw the eternal 
courts of Heaven, and was instructed how, feebly and 
faintly, to trace their model in the curtains and the gold of 
the Tabernacle. To him, among these things unutterable, 
the forty days and nights might well seem as one. To the 
fickle, impatient, turbulent crowd below, it appeared as 
though he had been lost in the thick darkness that covered 
the red crags among which he had disappeared. " As for 
this Moses, we wot not what is become of him." But 
there was one who neither was admitted among the un- 
speakable glories within the cloud, nor had the support of 
numbers in the vale beneath— one who had followed 
Moses as far as was allowed, and was left to hold his 
patient watch alone upon the bare mountain-side, in the 
dread solitude, awful in its silent grandeur even when left 
to nature, awful beyond measure when overhung by the 
cloud that hid the Divine presence. Out of sight, out of 
hearing of his fellows beneath — out of sight, out of hear- 
ing of the Master for whom he waited, but firm as the 
rocks around him, he tarried where he had been set to 
watch, through all those forty days and nights of awe, 



6 THE BOOK OF 

with unshaken heart, firm in the confidence learnt when 
he had " stood still to see the salvation of GOD." 

Surely no patient, resolute watch ever equalled that of 
Hoshea on the Mount of Horeb ; and that it was with an 
unwearied spirit, prompt to dare as well as resolute to wait, 
we see when Moses had at length come forth, with the 
precious Tables in his arms, and, as they descended, up 
came the wild tumultuous cries of the camp below, and 
the warrior listening cried : " There is a sound of war in 
the camp ! " 

Alas ! the sword of the avenging Levites had to be 
drawn, not against the Amalekite robber, but against the 
idolatrous Israelite, reviving Egyptian superstition in the 
very face of their insulted God. The second condition of 
the terms proclaimed by God's own voice had been openly 
violated, and Moses had destroyed the pledge of those 
promises to which there was no further claim. But still, 
hoping for his people against hope, he placed a tent for 
worship afar outside the camp, and there the presence of 
God again manifested itself. Moses entered to commune 
with God, and Hoshea, the only other man entirely un- 
implicated in the calf idolatry, departed not out of the 
Tabernacle. 

Intercession again obtained the renewal of the covenant 
once transgressed, and after nearly a year spent in the 
framing of the Tabernacle, the making of the priestly gar- 
ments, and the establishment, under Divine direction, of 
the great system of typical worship, the great multitude 
again moved on its way. There had now been time to 
marshal and array it as an army on the march, each tribe 
in its own place, with all its men numbered as warriors, 
and with their own standard, taken from the blessing of 
Jacob, at their head ; but as guide and leader to them all 
the cloudy pillar resting on the sacred Tabernacle. Around 
that holy tent camped the Priests and Levites, by hereditary 



WORTHIES. 7 

temper the fiercest of the Israelites, but restrained by their 
sacred office. Eastward lay the goodly tents marshalled 
under the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Westward was the 
bull standard of Ephraim, beneath which Hoshea was 
ranked ; to the south was the ensign of the water-bearer, 
whose burthen typified the instability of Reuben ; and to 
the north the Serpent, or, as some say, the Eagle, of Dan. 
Beyond lay stretched the other tents of Israel, according 
to their tribes. When the cloud arose, the Ark was lifted 
by the Priests, the sacred vessels borne by the Levites, 
the trumpets were blown, and the chant uplifted by 
thousands of voices — 

11 Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered ; 
Let them also that hate Him flee before Him. " 

Thus, in princely, regular march, the armies of Israel 
proceeded on their way from the jagged rocks of the 
southern wilderness to the more dreary and monotonous, 
though less wild, undulating desert of Paran. Here 
Moses halted and chose out twelve chiefs, one from every 
tribe, to go on in advance and reconnoitre the promised 
home of their inheritance. Of these thus sent on so 
perilous an adventure the bravest, most faithful, most 
patient must surely be one ; and Moses therefore sent 
Hoshea as the representative of Ephraim, and at the 
same time apparently added to his name of " Salvation," 
or "He will Save," the Divine syllable, Jah, so as to 
make it "The Lord will save." Did Moses mean to 
predict safe protection for his true minister ? Or was 
he guided by the spirit of prophecy to confer that name 
which in after times should belong to the true Captain 
of our Salvation, the Name above every name, at which 
every knee should bow ? 

As each of the twelve is called a Ruler of his tribe, it is 
probable that this was not a stealthy expedition of a few 



8 THE BOOK OF 

spies, lurking on foot, but that they took with them a 
small compact party of their swiftest warriors, able to 
thread their way through the valleys and waste places, to 
defend themselves if attacked by a small force, and to 
depart before a large one could be got together. They 
went with the watchword of Joshua, " Be strong and of a 
good courage," and they made good speed. They viewed 
the land of hills and Vales, " their fathers hope, their 
childhood's dream," so utterly unlike the place of their 
birth. They saw its deep valleys, watered by mountain 
streams, and full of fair pastures; the fields of waving 
corn, the mountain slopes covered with vines and olives ; 
the mighty shade of the cork-trees, and the broad foliage 
of the figs. They wandered up the deep-cleft Jordan 
valley, even in sight of the forests of Lebanon and Her- 
mon's snowy crown, and they made their way back by 
the sacred Vale of Hebron, the home of Abraham, where 
his oak-tree still spread its huge limbs, and the cave of 
Machpelah near at hand held the tombs of their fathers. 
And there they gathered those magnificent grapes that 
they brought back with them, to prove the splendour of 
the fruits of the land — a land, indeed, of promise. 

But there had been failing hearts among them. They" 
had not looked only at the corn and the vineyards : they 
had looked to the summit of the hills, each one crowned 
with a fortress built up of enormous stones, whose un- 
broken size after nearly four thousand years attest what 
the builders must have been in strength. And those first 
inhabitants were seen by the startled Israelites walking 
through their vineyards or gathering to make war. The 
last survivors of that giant race were ten or eleven feet 
in stature, and at the spectacle of such foes the hearts 
of the reconnoitring party sank within them, and when 
they came back to the camp they could scarcely speak of 
the loveliness of the country for describing the terrific 



WORTHIES. 9 

appearance of the inhabitants. The two, Joshua and 
Caleb, the stout-hearted deputy of the Lion tribe of Judah, 
did indeed speak undauntedly and full of hope and trust ; 
but their voices were lost among the doleful lamentations 
of their ten colleagues ; and throughout the whole night 
there was wailing and despair throughout the camp of 
Israel, till in early morning the populace had worked 
themselves up to such a pitch of senseless terror, that 
they proposed to choose a captain to lead them back to 
their bondage in Egypt. Joshua and Caleb, braver here 
than even when they searched the land, rushed forward 
to describe the beautiful land and remind them of the 
certainty that He who had wrested them out of the hand 
of Pharaoh could bring them into it ; but the enraged 
people would not listen, and only strove to stone them. 

The wild and tumultuous scene was only arrested by a 
sudden manifestation of the Glory of the Lord on the 
Tabernacle, overawing for a time the factious despair of 
the people. Moses entered within the Tabernacle to hear 
the Divine will. It was an awful answer. Those who 
would not enter the land should not. For forty years 
longer should the tribes remain as wanderers in the desert, 
till there had been time for the younger generation to grow 
up to a nobler, truer manhood, and for all their elders, 
all the obstinate murmurers who were for ever pining for 
Egypt, to perish in the wilderness. Two men alone of 
those above twenty were exempted by name from the 
sentence ; those two were Joshua and Caleb, who alone 
had shown that trust which is true courage. Already, in 
earnest of this sentence, a sudden plague swept away the 
ten faint-hearted spies who had brought the ill report, but 
came not near the two brave friends. But, with fickle 
perverseness, the multitude refused to obey the command 
to turn back into the wilderness. They would go on into 
Palestine. They marshalled their armies and marched, 



io THE BOOK OF 

without the Ark, without Moses, without Joshua, without 
the Blessing. Those who tarried beside the Ark on the 
top of the hill soon saw the wilful host return, diminished, 
broken, chased by the enemy in swarms like angry bees, 
and glad to hide their heads in the camp, under their 
wonted Guide, even though it were only to suffer their 
slow but certain doom. 

Those forty years are well-nigh a blank. At their close 
there was not a man in the whole congregation under 
sixty years of age, save Moses himself, Joshua, and Caleb ; 
and the younger race, trained up in the wondrous life of 
the Wilderness, beneath the discipline of Moses, were of 
very different mould from the slavish beings born and 
bred on the enervating banks of the Nile. 

Victories had already been won over the mighty tribes 
who dwelt in the great cities of the fat pasture-lands of 
Gilead and Bashan, and over the corrupt and luxurious 
Midianites ; the hills had been gained whence the narrow 
strip so longed for — the land flowing with milk and 
honey — could be viewed in its length and breadth. But 
there was one sentence first to be fulfilled — 

* ' Know ye not our glorious leader 
Salem must but see and die ? 
Israel's guide, and nurse, and feeder, 
Israel's hope afar must eye." 

" Show thy servants Thy work, and their children Thy 
glory, 7 ' had been Moses' own words of submission ; and 
now his work was ended, and he was about to enter into 
a fuller rest than that of Canaan, and it was to Joshua 
that his work was left— to the most faithful, the most 
courageous of all the men of Israel that the glory of 
conquest was to be given, on whom the charge of that 
mighty multitude was to be laid. 

The subdued and awe-struck people waited day after 



WORTHIES. ii 

day in their encampment on the slopes above the Dead 
Sea, while their chiefs gathered up those last discourses 
in which Moses reminded them of all their wonderful 
course of training in faith and holiness that they had 
undergone under the very eye, so to speak, of their Maker. 
Speaking not for them alone, but for all generations to 
come, he ardently exhorted them to the keeping of the 
Law, and warned them of the dire effects of breaking it ; 
and, in the spirit of mournful prophecy, he was carried 
on to predict all the miseries that too surely the dege- 
nerate race would call down upon themselves. 

Then came the Divine call, when Moses led the faithful 
Joshua into the Tabernacle, laid his consecrating hands 
upon him, and gave him the charge in which his office 
was summed up, " Be strong and of a good courage." 
And therewith the load and burthen of Israel were passed 
on to the warrior chief, whose strength lay in his simple 
obedience and fearless trust. 

One prophetic song, one prophetic blessing, each 
rising higher in grandeur and beauty than aught which 
had yet passed the lips of the wonderful old man, whose 
eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated, and Moses 
climbed Mount Nebo to gaze on the promised land, and 
die in the majestic solitude, alone with the God who had 
ever been to him the nearest. 

In the freshness of the loss came the voice of God pro- 
mising that the new leader should never miss the aid that 
had borne Moses through the wilderness. To Joshua was 
thus vouchsafed the external assurance, faith in which 
braces every right spirit to face new responsibilities. " I 
will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and of a 
good courage." That is the certainty that still makes 
Heroes, though they do not with their eyes behold, as did 
Joshua, the Captain of the Lord's Host, with His sword 
drawn in His hand, to maintain their cause. 



12 THE BOOK OF 

The obedience of the great Captain of Israel was first 
tried. When the rushing torrent of the river Jordan 
barred the way > he had to send the Priests bearing the Ark 
straight down into the still dashing stream ; nor did the 
miracle that checked the current begin till their feet had 
touched the water, and they had thus proved their faith 
in the promise that they should be safe. Phinehas, the 
son of Eleazar, the High Priest, was a bold and fierce 
man, undaunted in his zeal : but was not the courage and 
faith very great that could dare to walk into the midst of 
a rapid stream in confidence that protection would be 
given ? 

Obedience, not fierce attacks, was again imposed on 
the armies of Israel, when for six long days all these 
ardent fighting-men had to stand still and see nothing 
done to besiege the city of Jericho, except that the sacred 
Ark was carried round the walls by the Levites, while the 
seven Priests went in front and blew their trumpets. 
" What was the use ? " the faithless might have asked. 
There was at least this use. It is the maxim of armies 
now. Obedience is the soldier's first lesson : to stand 
still is the soldier's first exercise. The Divine Captain of 
the Lord's Host was teaching His army this first lesson. 

The seventh day came ; the Army, the Priests, the Ark, 
marched round in obedient stillness, till at Joshua's signal 
the trumpets pealed, the warriors shouted, and the mighty 
walls fell — fell all at once, and flat to the ground, so that 
the army marched in without climbing or struggling. A 
sentence had been spoken on Jericho. The Canaanites 
had become horribly corrupt, and to exterminate them 
from the face of the earth was the only means of saving 
Israel from the infection of their vices and idolatry. 
Strict commands had been given that none should escape 
the doom, save one household, and Joshua's care for that 
house and the faithful compassionate Rahab shows how 



WORTHIES. 13 

merciful his heart was, though he was compelled to act as 
the minister of God's judgment. 

The first success had been gained for the Israelites 
without their own efforts. They were next to fight for 
themselves, and attack the city of Ai> without supernatural 
assistance. They thought it so small that only a few of 
their number would be sufficient, leaving the whole mul- 
titude in the camp at Gilgal, beside the Jordan ; but, 
behold, they were driven back by the men of Ai, and 
lost many of their number. Then, in grief and dismay, 
Joshua and the chiefs lay prostrate in the dust before the 
Tabernacle till eventide, when there breathed forth from 
the Divine Oracle a rebuke for their discouragement, and 
a revelation that a sin within the camp was the true cause 
of their disaster. 

The sinner was traced out through lots by the Divine 
Disposer of events. And here it should be observed, that 
in spite of the crime, its consequences, and his own 
anxiety, Joshua spoke to the offender in the tenderest, 
most pitying tones : " My son, give, I pray thee, glory to 
the Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto Him ; 
and tell me now what thou hast done ; hide it not from 
me." The one grace of free confession yet remained for the 
unhappy Achan, and Joshua encouraged him by gentle- 
ness, even though to purify the camp the dreadful penalty 
of the sin had to -be paid. 

Ai was then taken, by means of an ambush which burst 
into the city when all the warriors had been decoyed away 
by a simulated flight of Joshua and the main body. This 
conquest enabled Joshua to fulfil the command of Moses, 
by placing half the representatives of the tribes on Mount 
Ebal, the other half on Mount Gerizim, with the Levites 
and the Ark in the narrow gorge between. The Ten Com- 
mandments were written on the face of the precipice of 
Ebal, and the blessings of God on those who kept the 



14 THE BOOK OF 

Law, His curses on those who kept it not, were rehearsed 
by the Levites, and each followed up by a response of 
" Amen" from the multitude on either side : the mountain 
echoes blending with the thunder of voices, as thus were 
given out the terms on which Israel was to hold the land 
now partly won. 

The pure, high, awful Law, and the victories of the men 
who proclaimed it, did not fall on entirely unheeding ears. 
The people, struck with terror, determined on winning the 
favour of these dread conquerors ; but, instead of dealing 
openly, they feigned to ask Joshua's friendship as distant 
allies, and their messengers showed themselves in the 
camp as travel-worn men. Promises were hastily made 
to them, and oaths sworn, and when, immediately after, the 
deception was discovered, the oath was still respected. 
The Gibeonites had not deserved to be free, but they 
became the servants of the Priests, an honourable office, 
in which they continued even after the Babylonish 
captivity. 

Indeed, the greatest of all the battles of the Israelites 
was fought in their defence. Five neighbouring Kings of 
the hill fortresses around undertook to avenge the desertion 
of the Gibeonites, and no sooner had Joshua and his 
warriors returned to the camp at Gilgal than they began 
to close in on Gibeon to punish their recreancy. Terrified 
messengers sped to Joshua's camp, crying, " Slack not 
thine hand from thy servants ; make haste to come to us." 
And, instead of leaving these cowardly allies to their fate, 
Joshua and his brave men set out instantly, and by march- 
ing all night were enabled to surprise the five united 
armies in early morning before Gibeon. 

There, on the slope of Beth-horon, was the great battle 
gained. Down, down the rugged ravine stumbled the 
terrified enemy ; while the Lord sent a furious hailstorm 
to increase their discomfiture — and the heavy jagged 



WORTHIES. 



'5 



pieces of ice slew even more than the sword of the 
Israelites. 

All day were the Israelites pursuing; and as evening 
drew on, Joshua, perceiving that darkness would prevent 
the advantage from being complete, was empowered to 
make that wondrous call, " Sun, stand thou still upon 
Gibeon ; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon," and 
thereupon daylight was continued even till the victory 
was full and absolute, and the conquerors returned to their 
great camp at Gilgal, their temporary home. 

The five Kings, deserted and terrified, had sought 
shelter in one of the great caves on the hill-side. There 
they were found, and detained till Joshua and his warriors 
could come and execute them. For this was not only the 
sentence due to their guilt, but it was also true mercy 
where an honourable captivity was impossible. " Surely 
the bitterness of death is past,' 7 said the Amalekite chief, 
who had seen his whole family and horde destroyed ; and 
the ten Kings who gathered their food under the table of 
Adoni-zedec, the Jebusite King of Jerusalem, with their 
thumbs and great toes cut off, should have said the same ; 
and no doubt had many a cruel wrong to be visited on 
Adoni-zedec when he was hanged with the other four on 
the trees beside the cave of Makkedah. 

Their cities were then taken, one by one ; but Josephus 
explains that only the lower city of Jerusalem was at 
this time seized, the fortress or upper city being still held 
by the Jebusites. These conquests gave the Israelite army 
the mastery of all the south part of Palestine ; but just as 
they had returned to Gilgal, probably to move the whole 
multitude into the land to take possession, came tidings 
of another confederation of the Kings of the north, who 
dwelt round Lake Merom, near the sources of the Jordan. 
Thither they marched, and had a great battle and victory 
by the lake side, and took the cities. 



i6 THE BOOK OF 

After this, as far as we can understand, the Tabernacle 
was moved from Gilgal, and set up on the flat tableland 
of Shiloh, while the people began to settle in the newly- 
conquered lands. The lot of the tribe of Joseph was clear 
by the dying command of Jacob, who had left his favoured 
son his own peculiar spot of the promised land — the Well 
of Shechem and the country round. There then, and in 
Mount Ephraim, did the two tribes of Joseph find their 
home, except those descendants of Manasseh's son,Machir, 
who had left their families in the great walled cities of 
Gilead and Bashan. Some of the Ephraimites were dis- 
contented, and came to Joshua to complain that they had 
nothing but forest. To which he replied, that " they were 
a great people and a strong ; they could cut down the 
wood ; or they could drive out the Perizzite giants or the 
Canaanites. If the Canaanites had chariots of iron, was 
not the Lord with the Ephraimites ?" Well would it have 
been for these his brethren could Joshua. have inspired 
into them such a spirit as filled his old companion Caleb, 
who came to entreat of him the post of danger. 

It was forty-five years since they two together had be- 
held the giants of Hebron, and brought away the grapes. 
Now Caleb came to remind Joshua of that time, and to 
request that his portion might be that very spot now held 
by a notable giant named Arba, who had changed the 
name of sacred Hebron to Kirjath Arba — the city of Arba. 
He recalled to Joshua the Lord's promise that they should 
survive to possess their inheritance, and showed himself 
not only alive, but at eighty-five years old as strong for 
war as he had been when he went forth as a spy. The 
grant was made, Hebron was won, the giants were slain ? 
all but a remnant driven into Gath, and Caleb offered his 
daughter Achsah as the prize of the brave man who 
should be the conqueror of Kirjath Sepher, the last city 
in his portion. Othniel, his nephew, was the winner of 



WORTHIES. i 7 

the city and the maiden, and kept up the old heroic spirit 
through the next generation. Judah, the tribe to which 
Caleb belonged, was flowing into the valleys between 
Hebron, Jericho, and the Wilderness. 

A great meeting was convened by Joshua at Shiloh, 
where he took leave of the two tribes and a half who were 
to dwell on the other side of Jordan, and divided the re- 
mainder of the land to the other seven tribes, settling the 
boundaries of each, and specifying the cities which they 
were to conquer for themselves. It was an evident appoint- 
ment of Providence that the country of Palestine was not 
in possession of a single great nation, with a united govern- 
ment, but that almost every fortress was a separate king- 
dom, so that when it was taken and newly peopled there 
were no claims on it from a former master ; and thus it was 
possible to follow out the command to take only the places 
that could at once be inhabited by the new comers, and by 
no means to live intermixed with the heathen natives. 
Thus was the task of Joshua fulfilled ; and, an aged man, 
he took up his abode in his own portion at Timnath-serah, 
— there, however, to mark with grief the slackness of the 
people in carrying out the commands of the LORD, the 
number of secret and open enemies they left themselves, 
and the way that Manasseh was leaving open for the 
Canaanite chariots of iron from the north. 

He convoked all the chiefs together at Shechem, near 
those engraven Laws on Mount Ebal's side, where the 
echoes of the blessings and the cursings might yet linger in 
their ears. There he sat beneath a mighty oak, and lifted 
up his voice of warning. They beheld for themselves that 
all God had promised had come to pass. Might they not 
thence conclude that on their disobedience all that He had 
threatened would equally come to pass ? "I am going the 
way of all the earth," said the aged hero, in this which 
he probably thought would be the farewell meeting with 
C 



18 THE BOOK OF 

his people. He lived, however, to meet them a second 
time at Shechem, and once more to receive their oath that 
they would keep the promises which were their tenure of 
Palestine. 

" As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord," said 
Joshua, speaking for himself with the grand singleness of 
heart that had marked him through life. The one simple 
duty in hand he had done to the best of his powers, from 
the hour when he had heard the call of Moses on the 
banks of the Nile, till that in which " Joshua, the son of 
Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being an hundred 
and ten years old." 

Where shall we find his like in faith, in patience, in 
obedience, in trust, in honour, in mercifulness, and in 
resolute courage ? 



WORTHIES. 



*9 



DAVID. 

B.C. I085 — IOI5. 

More than four hundred years had passed since 
Joshua's death — years of chequered prosperity and ad- 
versity to the Israelites. Idolatry and alliance with the 
remaining Canaanites were sure to lead to an invasion by 
the enemy on the offending tribe, and then came severe 
suffering, repentance, and deliverance through some 
mighty warrior raised up by Divine appointment. 

These vicissitudes chiefly affected the northern and 
eastern tribes. In the south, under brave old Caleb and 
Othniel, the tribe of Judah had made its home in the 
mountains more secure ; and though the hill-fortress of 
Salem still looked down on them as a Jebusite hold, yet, 
on the whole, it would seem that stern Judah and their near 
neighbours, the fierce mountaineers of Benjamin, had kept 
themselves free from the foul idolatries into which their 
neighbours were tempted, and still continued a free, brave, 
high-spirited people. They, however, had a very dangerous 
neighbour on the sea-coast. The Philistines were a race of 
far bolder temper, and with more power of combination, 
than the Canaanite nations, and the two tribes of Simeon 
and Dan — always somewhat inferior to the others — had left 
them in possession of five principal cities, which in process 
of time formed a league for the entire subdual of the rest 
of Palestine, and was further strengthened by having 
c 2 



20 THE BOOK OF 

amalgamated the remnant of the old giants whose fore- 
fathers had escaped from Caleb. Samson, though endowed 
with supernatural strength for the very purpose of acting 
as the champion of his tribe of Dan, was led away by 
temptation, and did nothing effectual or worthy of his 
powers ; and when he had been betrayed, and had perished 
in his last vengeful exertion of strength, and in one fatal 
battle the Ark had been taken and the Priests slain, the 
Sanctuary at Shiloh was broken up, and the whole of the 
open country seems to have become a prey to the Philis- 
tines, on the one hand, and the savage marauding Bedouin 
nations on the other. 

True, the power of God had been shown in the rescue 
of the Ark from idolatrous hands, but it remained in con- 
cealment in the forests ; there was no public ritual, and 
such of the Israelites as still remained unsubdued in the 
mountain fastnesses of Judah and Benjamin were only 
maintained in their faith by the visits and sacrifices of the 
first of the prophets, Samuel, who had been bred up in the 
Sanctuary at Shiloh, and there had, in earliest childhood, 
received the Divine call. 

Samuel was the first to revive the brave old godly spirit 
that made Israel invincible. Collecting the Israelites at 
Mizpeh, the great gathering-place of the southern tribes, 
he offered sacrifice and made public confession of the sin 
of the people. The Philistine host attempted to fall on 
them during their devotions ; but lightnings and thunder- 
ings from Heaven proclaimed, as it were, that God was 
again warring for his people : the enemy were discomfited, 
and with so great a slaughter that they ceased to molest 
Israel for many years. 

Still the want of a central point of union was felt by the 
tribes, and all the more because the Sanctuary at Shiloh, 
where they used to meet, had been destroyed, and no 
fresh place chosen. As Samuel grew old, they demanded 



WORTHIES. 21 

a king to collect and lead them out to battle, and the king 
who was chosen by the Divine appointment was, in many 
respects, fitted to be the leader of the host. He was born 
of one of the two tribes that had kept themselves most 
pure from idolatry, and had never been subdued by the 
enemy, even in the worst times. No taint of idolatry 
attached to the brave mountaineer of Gibeah ; he was 
courageous and fierce, as became the Wolf of Benjamin ; 
he was a man of magnificent stature, a dauntless leader, 
full of activity, and expert in the use of his weapons — 
above all, of his mighty spear, the favourite sceptre of 
the warrior chief. He had all the qualities of a truly 
worthy hero save one, and the lack of that one was his 
ruin. 

It was in the midst of the reign of Saul, while the valour 
of the king and his noble son Jonathan was constantly 
called forth to defend their country from the perpetual 
inroads of the Philistines to the west, and the desert tribes 
to the east, that on the fair slope of Bethlehem, the border- 
land of Benjamin and Judah, close by the tomb of Rachel, 
was born the eighth son of Jesse, the head prince of the 
tribe of Judah in the direct line. No chieftainship seems, 
however, to have been held by the old man ; he pastured his 
flock on the hill-sides, tilled the fields that had gained for 
the place the name of the City of Bread — the same fields 
where his grandmother Ruth had gleaned ; and it is said 
that he and his family were hereditary weavers of the 
hangings for the Sanctuary. 

Even the personal appearance of this eighth son of Jesse 
has been distinctly described ; and we know that he was 
one of the fair-complexioned Jews, such as are still some- 
times seen, with auburn hair and beautiful blue eyes, small 
and slight of form, but active, expert, and light of foot as a 
gazelle. Even while very young he had proved his courage 
in the defence of his father's flocks against wild beasts and 



22 THE BOOK OF 

robbers, and he had likewise the fair gift of song and 

music : 

" With heart as free as mountain air 
He carolled to his fleecy care; 
With motion free as mountain cloud 
He trod where mists the moorland shroud." 

This bright boy was watching his sheep on the hill-side 
when to his father's house in the village came the great 
and holy seer to hold a solemn sacrifice. David alone 
was not to share the feast. His seven brethren were surely 
enough to do honour to the prophet, and the youngest 
might be left in charge of the flock, without competing with 
those who already chafed against his unacknowledged 
superiority. But while he remained alone, left out from 
the festival, a message came to hasten him to come home. 
The seer would not sit down to the banquet until all 
his host's sons were before him. David hurried in, and 
found himself in the presence of the holy Nazarite, with 
the priestly garb, girt with the ephod or scarf, and with 
the long flowing grey hair unshorn since his birth. Father 
and brethren stood waiting round, and as the stripling 
entered the prophet met him, raised a horn filled with 
ointment, exhaling a rich odour as of holy incense, and 
poured it on the fair and golden head that bent before 
him. 

Thenceforth there was a new spirit in David's song 
that deepened and sweetened it. When he sang of lead- 
ing his flock to green fields and clear streams, he rejoiced 
in the great Shepherd who led him to the waters of 
comfort ; when he tuned his harp to rejoice in the stars 
that shone like lamps through his night-watch, it was 
because they spoke to his inward ear with the sound that is 
gone forth into all lands ; when his very soul bounded with 
exulting awe at the thunders rebounding from the moun- 
tains of Hermon to the wilderness of Kadesh, it was 



WORTHIES. 



23 



because in them he heard the Voice of the Lord, and the 
sweet undertone, promising the blessing of peace. 

His minstrelsy became so well known, that, when by the 
Divine judgment a dark moody frenzy fell upon Saul, he 
was sent for, that his sweet songs might dispel the gloom ; 
but he returned home immediately after, and resumed his 
shepherd-charge for the last time. 

Again the Philistines had collected, taking advantage 
of the king's old age and fits of insanity, and their mighty 
army marched over the border-land. Judah and Ben- 
jamin rallied around Saul, and among them went the 
three elder sons of Jesse. The two armies lay encamped, 
each on a hill-side, a valley about five miles wide, scattered 
with blocks of grey-stone, lying between them. Day after 
day passed without a battle ; and Jesse, at length, anxious 
for tidings, sent his youngest son over the hills from Beth- 
lehem to carry provisions to his brothers and a present to 
the captain of their company. 

Then it was that, as David sought out his brothers, he 
beheld, stalking along the valley, and threatening the host 
of Israel, a being fully twice the height of any ordinary 
man, and large in proportion, armed with brazen armour, 
with an enormous spear in his hand, and a shield-bearer 
before him. It was one of the descendants of the old 
giants who had escaped from Caleb and found a home 
among the Philistines, and his loud voice was shouting a 
defiance to the men of Israel to decide the entire war by a 
single combat. 

David made inquiries from the bystanders, and heard 
that the defiance had now been made for full forty days, but 
that no Israelite, in spite of the king's promises of the 
hand of his daughter, had dared to offer himself as a 
champion against such an enemy. Eliab, David's eldest 
brother, came on him in the midst of his inquiries, and 
with the old jealousy chid him harshly as a truant and a 



24 THE BOOK OF 

boaster ; but something in the dauntless look and tone of 
the youth so impressed the officers that they brought him 
to the king's presence. He was seventeen years of age ; 
still fair and slender-limbed, and very youthful-looking : 
but no one knew him as the same boy who had harped 
to Saul at Gibeah ; nor that the same Divine Spirit that 
breathed in his song now shone forth in his blue eyes as 
he stood in his shepherd garb, and bade the king fear not : 
he would go forth and fight with the Philistine. 

Saul — almost a giant himself — spoke to the fair boy, as 
to an eager child, of the mere impossibility he was under- 
taking ; but David simply answered, that by God's help 
he had slain a lion and a bear in defence of his father's 
flock, and, by the same help, he trusted to slay the 
Philistine, because he had defied the armies of the living 
God. 

No miracle had been wrought for Israel since the days 
of Samson ; but the trust that looked out of David's face 
inspired Saul, and he would have armed him for the 
encounter : but the slight stripling could not move under 
the great old king's ponderous arms, and preferred trust- 
ing to the weapons he understood. His shepherd's sling 
hung at his shoulder, and he chose him five smooth stones 
out of the brook — the missiles with which he had often 
driven away wolves and jackals from the flock, and with 
which he was as expert as the great slingers of Benjamin. 

Fierce was the scorn of Goliath at the sight of the only 
champion Israel could produce ; a shepherd boy coming 
out with a staff and a sling, as if against a wild dog ; but 
no sooner was the defiance spoken on either side than an 
unerring stone, sent forth from the sling; struck the 
Philistine on the forehead, and stretched him on the 
ground. Then the young shepherd ran up, stood on the 
huge body, drew the mighty sword, despatched him with 
it, and cut off his head. 



WORTHIES. 25 

The utter discomfiture of the Philistines ensued ; and 
the shepherd lad was honoured by the king, and received 
wixh due regard by the brave old general Abner, and 
fervent generous admiration by Jonathan, the king's son, 
who, though much older than David, loved him hence- 
forth with ardent, noble, equal friendship. In eastern 
fashion, he arrayed him in his own robe, and girt him 
with his own sword, and David became the chief hero of 
the army. When the triumphant host returned home, 
and the women came forth with garlands, dancing and 
beating tkeir timbrels as they sang — 

" Saul hath slain his thousands, 
But David his ten thousands," 

the bitter suspicion crept into the king's heart that here 
was the person of whom Samuel had spoken to him — the 
man who was to be raised up to wear the crown in his 
stead ; and he hated the youth accordingly. It was 
impossible to act openly against David, who was beloved 
and honoured by all, and behaved with such prudence 
that no fault could be found with him ; but twice, when 
he was trying by his music to sooth away Saul's frenzy, 
the wretched old king lost all sense of restraint, and 
aimed a javelin at him, hoping to slay him under the 
excuse of madness. 

A command in the army was then given to him, to 
remove him from Saul's presence ; but the promise of a 
marriage with Saul's daughter was first unfulfilled, and 
then was held forth as an incentive to further deeds 
of daring against the Philistines, in which the king hoped 
that the hated youth would meet his death. The first 
daughter, who had been promised him, was bestowed upon 
another. The second daughter, Michal, loved the noble 
and beautiful young warrior, and Saul offered her to David 
as the prize for the slaughter of a hundred Philistines. 



26 THE BOOK OF 

David slew double the number, and returned unhurt ; so 
that, for very shame, Saul could not withhold his bride. 

The near connexion, however, only rendered Saul's 
hatred stronger, though the influence of Jonathan and 
the universal admiration of David forced him to keep it 
in check, so that it seems only to have broken forth, under 
cover of frenzy, when some fresh exploit of David had 
aroused his jealousy. Thus, after another Philistine war, 
he again tried to nail David to the wall with the spear he 
always carried in his hand as a sceptre ; and then sent 
murderous slaves to follow up the pursuit. 

David was only saved by the strategem of his wife, 
Michal, who let him down from the window, while she 
deceived his enemies by showing them a figure in bed 
veiled with a goat's-hair mosquito curtain, and declaring 
him to be sick. She then loved him ; but her affection 
was not enduring, and after a time she allowed herself to 
be given to another husband. David meantime had 
repaired to the sacred home where the aged Samuel dwelt, 
surrounded by young men who were being trained up amid 
prayer and psalmody to be the lights of the coming gene- 
ration. Warrior and captain though he were, here was a 
congenial resting-place for the minstrel. He resumed his 
shepherd's harp, and poured out his heart in songs of 
prayer and thanksgiving, until Saul traced him out, and 
pursued him thither in person. David fled ; but when 
Saul found himself in the presence of the inspired guide 
of his youth, and heard the songs of the choir of young 
disciples, once again the Spirit of holiness breathed over 
him, he stripped off his robe, and sang once more the 
songs of the Lord. 

It seems as if David was anxious to know whether this 
gleam of brighter days was to lead to permanent change 
on Saul's part, for he went to Jonathan and desired to 
know the grounds of this continued persecution. Jonathan, 



WORTHIES. 27 

loving both his father and David and perfectly aware of 
the blamelessness of the latter, could not believe that 
there was any serious design against his friend, and it 
was resolved to put Saul's intentions to the proof. A 
family banquet was to be held on the feast of the new 
moon, and David's presence as the king's son-in-law 
would be naturally expected ; but he was to absent him- 
self, under pretext of being required at the feast of his own 
family at Bethlehem. Jonathan was to observe how his 
father accepted this plea, and to communicate the result 
by the words he should say to the boy who attended him 
when he went out to practise with the bow, near a rock 
where David was hidden. 

The absence of David, and Jonathan's excuse, produced 
a burst of ungovernable fury, in which Saul insulted his 
son, cast a javelin at him, and drove him from the feast 
in anger. The meeting took place as determined. David, 
concealed behind the rock, watched Jonathan shoot his 
arrows, and give directions to the attendant in the words 
that were to be a note of warning. Still it was possible 
to have one farewell meeting ; the boy was dismissed, and 
the two generous friends met, and wept in one another's 
arms, "till David exceeded.'' All was hope before 
David, in spite of the present distress : all was sorrow 
before Jonathan, who saw his father ever falling lower in 
crime and in frenzy, and knew that for these very crimes 
the crown had been forfeited ; and though he was treated 
as the heir, yet the future king should be this youth, whom 
his generous, noble-hearted affection forbade him to 
regard with jealousy. All he asked was, that when David's 
time of glory should be come, their love should be borne 
in mind, and that kindness might for his sake be shown 
to his children. 

Then this true friend and son returned to his father 
and David went lonely on his way ; on his way visiting 



28 THE BOOK OF 

the High Priest, and obtaining from him the sword of 
Goliath, which he was now fully able to wield, and the 
sacred shew-bread, the provision of the priests. This 
transaction was reported to Saul by an Edomite herds- 
man in his service, and the cruel vengeance that in 
his frenzy he inflicted on the priests seems to have 
extinguished the last ray of hope that was left him. 

David at first took refuge in the Philistine country ; but 
he found himself there regarded with so much distrust 
and hatred, that he only escaped by feigning himself a 
madman, and taking advantage of the awe with which 
insanity is regarded in the East. 

Under this cover he contrived to escape to his native 
hills, the wild ruddy rocks that lay between Bethlehem 
and the Dead Sea. His shepherd life had made every 
pass familiar to him, and he well knew the mighty caverns 
that ran far beneath the mountains. There he met many 
a brave comrade. All whom Saul's violent and uncertain 
dealing had offended came to the famed warrior in his 
outlawed state, and among them his own kindred, some of 
his brothers and his nephews ; his sister Zeruiah's sons, 
who seem to have been about his own age. His parents, 
probably finding Bethlehem no longer safe, joined him 
also ; but as they were unequal to the fatigues of his wan- 
dering life, he escorted them to Moab, where they were 
hospitably received and sheltered for the sake of Jesse's 
grandmother, Ruth. 

Thus began David's outlaw life. With his little band 
he hovered about the mountains of Judah — now attacking 
the Philistines, now protecting the farms and cattle of the 
men of Judah from the attacks of the robber tribes of the 
wilderness, now making swift marches to elude the pur- 
suit of Saul. Some of his followers, and specially his 
nephews, were fierce, lawless men, to whom their wild life 
was only too congenial ; but all seem to have been attached 



WORTHIES. 29 

to David with the passionate devotion that is inspired by 
the true hero nature. And, in constant restraint to the 
dangerous tendencies of this adventurous life, David kept 
God ever before his eyes. The only survivor of the priestly 
city was with him, ready to minister to God, and he himself 
was constantly pouring forth Psalms of entreaty, of thanks- 
giving, or of instruction to his warriors. Mighty men were 
they, the bravest of the brave, with lion-like faces, feet 
swift on the mountains as those of the gazelle, coping, like 
David himself, with the giants of Gath, slaying the lions 
whom they met in the hills and woodlands, and only three 
together broke through the whole Philistine army to pro- 
cure for their captain a draught from his beloved fountain 
of Bethlehem. 

Yet though the strongest and most courageous rallied 
round him, David was content to fly before his foe, and 
be hunted as a partridge on the mountains. And why ? 
Because his loyalty would not let him lift a hand against 
the anointed of the Lord. 

" O tarry thou the Lord's leisure. 
Be strong ; and He shall comfort thine heart : 
And put thou thy trust in the Lord." 

Such was the spirit of his song and of his resolution. Thrice 
he and his pursuers were brought very near together. 
Once the men of Ziph betrayed his whereabouts to Saul, 
who came in haste to pursue him through the forest. Here 
the loving Jonathan stole out at night, and for the last time 
took sweet counsel with his friend, — " Thou shalt be king 
in Israel," he said, "and I shall be next unto thee ;" and 
once more they parted in the strength of their unshaken 
brotherhood of love. 

On this occasion David and his mountaineers climbed 
down the cliff on one side of the hill, while Saul was sur- 
rounding it on the other side, and the king was imme- 
diately after called off by a foray of the Philistines. Soon 



3o THE BOOK OF 

however he was in full pursuit of David again : and on 
this occasion he incautiously entered alone the great cave 
of En-gedi, or of the wild goats, on the borders of the 
Dead Sea, little supposing that David and all his men 
were lurking in its dark recesses. David would not 
hear of injuring or capturing him, but, unseen, crept up 
and cut off the skirt of his robe ; then, when he had gone 
forth again into open day, followed him, and showed him 
this proof of his peril and his own forbearance. Saul was 
touched for a moment, wept as he acknowledged David's 
generosity, and even owned that he would be the future 
king, and entreated his mercy on his family. 

But his persistent hatred again mastered the king, and 
he pursued David into the extreme south of Judah, where 
again he had his life given to him by this most loyal of 
outlaws. The whole army lay asleep within their drawn- 
up line of waggons, Saul in the midst, with his mighty 
spear planted beside him, and a jar of water — after the 
custom of the thirsty Easterns — close to his head, when 
David and his nephew Abishai, one of his three mightiest 
men, both of them light of foot as wild roes, stole into 
the camp and stood beside the sleeping king. Abishai 
would have slain him as he lay, but David forbade the 
treacherous and disloyal blow. He only bore away the 
spear and the water-jar, as tokens of what he could have 
done. And when he had gained the top of a crag, he 
shouted with something of gay triumph to his old captain 
Abner, showing him what careless watch he had kept, 
since one of the people "had entered the camp, and 
borne off the king's spear and cruse of water." 

Saul knew the voice, and, in his fitful mood, once more 
relented, and spoke affectionately to his son-in-law ; but 
David durst not venture himself in his hands : and indeed 
by this time Saul had given away David's wife, Michal, 
in marriage to another, and David had taken to himself 



WORTHIES. 31 

other wives, after the Eastern fashion — specially Abigail, 
the wise widow of the ungrateful churl, Nabal. 

Finding that his wandering life could no longer be kept 
up, he again sought refuge among the Philistines ; but 
instead of coming as before as a lonely fugitive, he brought 
600 of the bravest men of Israel with him, and obtained 
from Achish, king of Gath, the grant of the city of 
Ziklag, where he dwelt for a year and four months, and 
there received reinforcements from his own country — 
mighty, lion-faced men of Gad, who swam the Jordan in 
time of flood to come to him, and even the boldest of 
Saul's own tribe of Benjamin, archers who could draw 
the bow and launch the stone with the left hand as well 
as with the right. 

With these forces, David made attacks on the old foes 
of Israel, the Bedouin hordes of the desert, and, returning 
with their spoil, gave evasive answers that led Achish to 
suppose it was the spoil of his native country. When there 
was a great muster of all the Philistine troops for a mighty 
invasion of Israel, David was forced to bring his band to 
join them. What he would have done had a battle taken 
place is not known ; the predicament was spared him by 
the distrust of the Philistine lords, who insisted that he 
and his warriors should be expelled from the camp. 

On their return to Ziklag they found a woful sight. 
The Amalekites— the worst of all the Bedouin tribes — had 
fallen on the place, in the absence of all its men, and 
carried off all the women and children and cattle, so 
that nothing but silent, smoking ruins met the eyes of 
the troop. Their spirits gave way — they wept till they 
could weep no longer ; and some in their rage were ready 
to turn against their chief, and stone him, for having 
brought this disaster on them, though he was an equal 
sufferer with themselves ; for his own wives were among 
the lost. 



32 THE BOOK OF 

His courage, however, first revived. He obtained Divine 
direction through the priest Abiathar, and set forth at once 
in pursuit, so swiftly, that 200 of his men had to be left 
behind on the way, from sheer exhaustion. Presently 
the pursuers came upon a miserable Egyptian slave, who 
had been left behind, dying of hunger and thirst, by the 
marauders. When he had been revived by food, he gave 
an account of the onslaught on Ziklag, and guided David 
and his men to where the Amalekites were eating, drink- 
ing, dancing, or sleeping in perfect security, rejoicing in 
the huge plunder they had gathered from many a ruined 
city besides that of Ziklag. 

They fell an easy prey to the Israelite company. Only 
400 young men succeeded in escaping upon their camels, 
and David's men not only recovered their wives and chil- 
dren and their other property, but there was an immense 
spoil to divide. A fit of selfishness made them wish 
merely to restore to the comrades who had tarried behind 
their own original property ; but this their open-hearted 
leader forbade, and made a rule that the spoil of the 
enemy should be shared as well by the guards of the camp 
as by those who went forth to the battle — a wise as well 
as a just law, much conducing to safety and discipline. 
The booty of the Amalekites proved so large that there 
was enough for David to send rich gifts to all the friends 
who had befriended him in his wanderings in Judah. 

But more stirring news was on the wing. That inroad 
of the Philistines had reduced Saul to extremity. He had 
worked his own desolation. The flower of his warriors 
were with David ; he had slain the priests ; driven away 
the Good Spirit ; Samuel was no more : none stood by 
him save his true and faithful son. Otherwise he was 
deserted alike of God and man. In his misery he even 
crept round the camp of the Philistines, over broken, 
stony ground, and sought counsel in the cave of one oi 



WORTHIES, 33 

the witches whom in his better days he had striven to root 
out. Then, to complete his doom, and pronounce his sen- 
tence, the spirit of Samuel arose, even like a god from the 
earth, and summed up his whole life in one awful rebuke, 
which left the wretched king lying senseless on the ground. 
Revived in part by food, the doomed man stole back to 
his army to defend to the last his own native mountains of 
Benjamin. There, amid these hills of Gilboa, died as a 
good soldier the noble Jonathan, amid his brothers ; and 
there by the end of the day remained Saul, unable to 
escape, and dreading the scorn and torture that would 
meet a captive king. He tried to die by his own hand, 
but only wounded himself sorely, and was still alive when 
an Amalekite robber came up to strip the slain, and com- 
plied with the unhappy man's entreaty to end his life. 
Then, bearing the royal crown and bracelet as tokens of 
the truth, the robber sought Ziklag, and, falling at David's 
feet, presented him with them, and told his tale. David 
at once caused him to be put to death, as the murderer ot 
an anointed king. And then, with no exultation, but only 
sorrow, he remembered no more that Saul had been his 
i>itter foe, but only that he had been a mighty king, and 
Jonathan a dear, faithful friend, and he sung in their 
honour his most lovely and tender lament — 

" The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places : 
How are the mighty fallen ! " 

And, in honourable memory of the bow of the mighty 
archer Jonathan, he bade that his own tribe of Judah 
should be taught to become as expert in archery as the 
Benjamites. 

Saul had left at least three young sons, and Jonathan 

a child of five years old ; but when the king and princes 

had fallen on Mount Gilboa, upon their own highlands, 

the enemy seem to have overrun the land, and the 

D 



34 



THE BOOK OF 



royal family fled in terror beyond the Jordan. Mephibo- 
sheth, Jonathan's poor little son, fell from his nurse's 
arms in the flight, and was lamed for life. Abner, Saul's 
uncle and general, as true a fierce Wolf of Benjamin as 
himself, and apparently of the same self-willed untame- 
able nature, collected the few adherents of the house of 
Kish together on the utmost border of the land, at Maha- 
naim, the place consecrated by Jacob on account of his 
meeting with the angels, and there set up Ishbosheth, the 
eldest surviving son of Saul, to reign over the two tribes 
and a half beyond Jordan, amid the rich pastures, oak 
forests, and gigantic ruins of Gilead and Bashan, as well 
as over many of the more central tribes. 

David, however, had received the Divine sanction to 
assume the crown royal at Hebron, the oldest sacred city 
in the world, full of the memories of Abraham and of the 
brave deeds of Caleb. Here he ruled over Judah, and de- 
fended the country from the Philistines, without attempting 
to expel his rival, content to wait the Lord's pleasure, and 
too patriotic to waste the strength of Israel by a civil war. 
Abner, however, came out to Gibeah, and there meeting 
Joab, David's nephew, in the olive-clothed valley, by the 
great reservoir called the pool of Gibeon, the two 
generals proposed to decide their quarrel by a combat, 
like that of the Horatii and Curiatii, of twelve young men 
on either side, while they themselves sat to judge of their 
prowess. The whole twenty-four were so equally matched 
that all lay dead on the plain, stabbed by the side-thrust 
of the deadly short-sword of Israel. The battle became 
general ; Abner was totally defeated and forced to fly, but 
he was closely followed by the swift-footed young Asahel, 
Joab's youngest brother. The gallant old warrior, un- 
willing to slay the fair agile lad, entreated him to turn 
back, or at least put on the armour of one of the slain who 
strewed the way ; but Asahel rashly persisted in harassing 



WORTHIES. 35 

him, till he was forced to turn and give him a death-stroke. 
There is something very grand in Abner, who, though de- 
feated, was still, in David's absence, the true prince among 
men, and even now, when he had gained a hill-top, put 
a stop to the pursuit by his commanding shout and 
remonstrance, which even the vindictive Joab durst not 
disobey, though in his first rage at his brother's death. 

He kept his wrath, however; and when Abner became 
displeased with Ishbosheth, and came to Hebron to offer 
his adherence to David, Joab treacherously caused him to 
be followed on his departure, invited back to Hebron, and 
at the very gate slew him with his own hand. Hebron 
was a sanctuary city, and a few steps placed the murderer 
within its precincts, where he could not receive the reward 
of his crime unless there claimed by the revenger of blood, 
and tried by the Levites and elders. David was therefore 
forced to leave Joab unpunished ; but he marked his abhor- 
rence of the crime by pronouncing a solemn curse on the 
blood-stained family, and causing a great lamentation to 
be held when Abner was buried at Hebron. He himself 
led the wailing chant over his ancient captain, the prince 
and mighty man fallen this day in Israel. 

Deprived of his protector, Ishbosheth soon perished by 
the hand of two assassins, who sought to obtain favour 
from David, but met instead justice for their crime. If 
he had slain the murderer of Saul, he said, "How 
much more wicked men who had slain a righteous 
person on his bed?" 

All opposition was now ended ; David was the chosen 
king of all Israel, and every tribe sent deputations to do 
him honour and bring presents of their fruits. He was 
crowned king in his thirty-seventh year, amid the en- 
thusiastic greetings of the whole nation. And while they 
were thus gathered round him, it seemed to him that he 
might well use their zeal by winning the natural capital of 

D 2 



36 THE BOOK OF 

Palestine, which stood high amid her vassal hills, towering 
above Hebron, the Salem of Melchisedek, the Moriah of 
Isaac's sacrifice, the mountain-fortress that even when its 
king had fallen had resisted Joshua, the hostile Jebus, 
whose enmity must have been so often felt at Bethlehem. 
Let him win that city, and his kingdom would have an 
almost impregnable rallying-point, and his royalty would 
be that of a true king and lawgiver, not, like Saul's, that 
of a mere partisan chieftain, with a spear at his bolster. 

The lower city was taken ; but the upper fortress, the 
stronghold, defied him, as indeed it was again and again 
to defy any invader to whom it had not been destined by 
the Lord himself. The Jebusites seem to have thought 
their blind and cripples a sufficient defence for it, and the 
assault of the steep precipitous sides and giant ramparts 
was so desperate, that David offered the generalship of his 
army as the reward of the foremost chief who should win 
an entrance. Joab was the warrior who scaled the heights 
and won his way into the city, thus becoming captain of the 
host ; and he was ever a brave upholder of David's power, 
though his rude lawless violence and cruelty made him a 
thorn in the side of the holy king. David's six hundred 
warriors had become the foundation of a mighty army, all 
on foot, in obedience to the inspired command against 
trusting to the horses and chariots that could never be 
really available in so hilly a land as Palestine. The men 
of the East believe David to have invented chain armour, 
and still call a particularly good hawberk after his name ; 
and by the excellent order and great valour of his army, 
under the Divine blessing, he succeeded in completing the 
conquest begun by Joshua. The Israelites were no longer 
a people scattered among the remnants of old heathens ; 
but the old land was uniformly under David's sway, and 
the ancient inhabitants— unless they belonged to the old 
proscribed races — had the privileges of the Jewish cove- 



WORTHIES. 37 

nant opened to them, and we find the Hittite, the Jebusite, 
and the Philistine, Cherethite, and Pelethite reckoned 
among David's loyal subjects or soldiers. The Philistines 
were so reduced that, though they existed as a nation down 
to the time of Alexander, they never seriously molested 
the Israelites again. Syria, Edom, Moab, and Ammon 
were all conquered, and the Phoenicians were friendly allies, 
so that David's kingdom reached the old boundaries 
promised to Abraham, from the Mediterranean to the 
Euphrates, from Lebanon to the torrent of Egypt. 

The victories were won, it would seem, in the summer 
campaigns, since winter fighting in the rainy seasons 
among the bleak mountains is nearly impossible in Pales- 
tine ; and David was in the meantime freshly building the 
fortifications of Jerusalem, and raising a citadel palace on 
Mount Zion, with materials sent him by the King of Tyre. 
Moreover, he resolved to transport thither the Ark of 
the Covenant, and thus consecrate Jerusalem to be the 
religious as well as the civil and military capital of his 
kingdom. In this, no doubt, he had Divine direction ; but 
his first attempt to remove the Ark from the forest house 
of the Levite, where it had been lodged for many years, 
was irregularly made. It was placed on a cart, in oblivion 
of the old command observed in the wilderness, that it 
should be borne on staves on the shoulders of Kohathite 
Levites ; and this rashness and want of reverence were 
punished by the sudden death-stroke that fell upon the 
foremost of the Levites, who had thus disregarded the 
laws that hedged in the awful sanctity of this emblem of 
the connexion of the Israelites with their LORD. 

After a year's delay, during which the Ark remained in 
the house of a Levite, it was again removed with all the 
honours enjoined by Moses, with a choir of Levites singing 
the old song of the wilderness journeys — 

"Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered," 



3 3 THE BOOK OF 

with a beautiful triumphant addition composed by the 
minstrel king himself. All the chiefs of Israel formed a 
magnificent procession, and he himself, robed in white, 
led the solemn dance that welcomed the Ark to the 
Tabernacle that he had raised for it on Mount Zion, 
while his own glorious Psalm was sung from one rejoicing 
band to another — 

" Lift up your heads, O ye gates, 
And the King of Glory shall come in. 
And be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors. 
Who is the King of Glory ? 
It is the Lord, strong and mighty, 
Even the Lord, mighty in battle." 

David had caused his wife Michal, Saul's daughter, to 
be restored to him, partly, no doubt, to establish his right 
in the eyes of the friends of the house of Kish. With all 
her father's pride, she rebuked David contemptuously for 
lowering his kingly dignity by his share in the dance that 
welcomed the Ark, and for this ungodly scorn she was 
punished by being childless, thus losing the hope that 
would seem naturally to have belonged to his first and royal 
wife, of the Benjamite tribe, of being the ancestress of the 
unfailing line of kings that was to culminate in the Messiah. 

David had already taken other wives, and had several 
sons, and he knew that his line and the city where he had 
fixed his home were under a peculiar blessing. His long- 
ing was to raise a magnificent Temple, instead of merely 
leaving the Ark in the curtained Tabernacle, where, how- 
ever, he had taken care that the whole ritual taught to 
Moses should be daily observed, with the addition of a 
continual chanting of Psalms, mostly composed by him- 
self. The prophet Nathan at first approved his design, 
but was afterwards instructed to tell him that his hands 
were too blood-stained, himself too much of a warrior, to 
be permitted to carry out this pious enterprise, but that it 



WORTHIES. 39 

should be performed by a son whom the Lord would give 
him ; and at the same time blessings were promised to his 
lineage, and the throne confirmed to them for ever — in 
those words "for ever" a far more glorious future being 
included than merely a perpetual dominion over little 
rocky Palestine. 

David was thankful, and, like Moses of old, was content 
to have the work, that his children might have the glory. 
He began to prepare materials for the future Temple. 
But it appears as if, even in the midst of his thankfulness, 
a certain slothfulness had come over David, perhaps 
that ease and presumption that are only too apt to follow 
upon any great honour or favour. For the first time, it 
would seem, at the season " when kings go forth to battle" 
he remained at home in his own house at Jerusalem, 
instead of leading his army in their campaign against 
Rabbah, the royal city of the Ammonites. While thus 
lingering he fell into temptation, through the beauty of 
Bathsheba, who, though apparently the grandchild of his 
cunning councillor, Ahithophel, was the wife of Uriah, one 
of the Hittite captains of his army. The sin and shame 
of David's life followed. He had learned to think a multi- 
tude of wives a mark of royalty, like that of the nations 
round, and he forgot that he was acting exactly as his old 
master Samuel had warned the Israelites that a tyrant 
would act towards them. Desiring to take Bathsheba to 
himself, he removed her husband by sending secret com- 
mands to Joab to place him in the forefront of the battle, 
where he could not fail to be slain. 

Probably an ordinary Eastern monarch would have 
acted with more reckless violence and disregard of 
appearances, and for many months David seems to have 
been utterly unaware of the guilt he had incurred, until 
the prophet Nathan came to him with a brief tale that 
went straight to his shepherd heart, the touching story of 



4 o THE BOOK OF 

a poor man who loved and cherished his one little live 
lamb, the darling of his house, and of a rich man who 
cruelly and wantonly snatched it from him to serve as a 
meal for his guest. David's spirit was again among the 
lambs of his flock at Bethlehem, and with all the fire with 
which he would in his bright boyhood have heard of 
injustice he broke forth with sentence of death against 
the cruel rich man, when the lamb should have been 
restored fourfold to his injured neighbour. Little did he 
expect to hear the stern words, " Thou art the man !" 
Bathsheba was the one little ewe lamb, Uriah was the 
injured owner, and he himself was the cruel tyrant. Nor 
could he fulfil his own sentence, and make restitution ; 
for he had done even worse than him whom he con- 
demned. He had slain Uriah with the sword of the 
enemy ! 

Then it was that David's true greatness became most 
plainly seen. He saw the whole truth instantly, and his 
grief for it put out all false shame, all thought of kingly 
pride, all displeasure at the bold reproof. 

" I have sinned against the Lord," he said. 

Those simple words were full of the intense repentance 
in his heart, and the prophet at once assured him that the 
sin so repented of was forgiven. His life would not be 
taken instead of Uriah's life, his soul should be relieved 
from God's anger ; but chastisement must be sent on 
him in love, though not in anger, " because he had given 
great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme." 
Most true are these last words. No sin recorded in Scrip- 
ture has been so lightly or so improperly spoken of by the 
enemies of the Lord as this sin of David's, even to our 
own day. 

And yet no sin, perhaps, has turned more to the good 
of the world, for it was in David's anguish and humilia- 
tion, when he was crushed to the ground by the thought 



WORTHIES. 41 

of his sin, that he composed those mournful Psalms of 
repentance, which have ever since his day been the chief 
assistance to sinners in rightly deploring their sin and 
praying for pardon. 

The first chastisement was the death of Bathsheba's 
child, for whom David wept and mourned, so long as he 
hoped that his own humiliation and prayer might avail to 
save its life ; but when it was dead he submitted, with the 
trust that u I shall go to him, but he shall not return to 
me." Yet, though the sin had been forgiven, the loving 
heart of David could not be as it was before ; the bright- 
ness of his life had passed away : and though Rabbah, the 
royal city of Ammon, was ready to fall after a weary 
siege, it was only by an urgent summons that Joab could 
bring him to the camp to enjoy the honour of the final 
taking of the inner stronghold. Though another son was 
born to him of Bathsheba, and marked out by God 
himself as the heir of the glorious promise, still David 
continued to humble himself as one who could not 
forget that he had offended and grieved the God of his 
love. 

Man of war as he was, peace was the craving of his 
life : 

" The Lord shall give his people the blessing of peace " 

had been the sweet conclusion of his youthful song of the 
Seven Thunders. Absalom — (Father of Peace) — was the 
name he gave his son, born among the strifes and 
perils of his residence at Hebron : Jerusalem — (Vision of 
Peace) — was the name he restored to his royal city : and 
Solomon — (Peace) — was the name given to the infant 
destined to the work that he might not carry out. 

But peace was not to be for David. The sons of the 
many wives he had taken when deprived of Michal were 
growing up in the pride and lawless habits too common 



42 THE BOOK OF 

in young princes ; and Absalom, whose mother was the 
daughter of a petty Philistine prince, and who stood 
pre-eminent in the glorious beauty that David had him- 
self possessed, was the favourite alike of his father and 
the people. 

He was not the eldest son, but Amnon, the first-born of 
David by a different mother, committed an unpardonable 
offence against him, which David passed weakly over, as 
if his sons were above the law. Absalom revenged himself 
by the murder of his elder brother, and then fled to his 
mother's kindred at Geshur, where he remained until his 
pardon was obtained by Joab. No doubt the conduct of 
his sons quickened David's grief, and his penitence, not 
being understood by the world, was thought by them 
unworthy of what no doubt they deemed a mere trifle. 
Idlers in the shady, arched gateways of the city made 
a joke of the king's self-abasement, and drunkards made 
songs upon him. Young Absalom, jealous of his little 
brother, and unforgiving of his banishment, took advan- 
tage of these discontents. He sat himself down in the 
gateway, intercepted all the persons who were going up to 
his father for justice, and, with soft and pitying words and 
caresses, told them that it was of no use to proceed, the 
king was too much occupied with his devotions, and with 
preparations for his new Temple, for which no doubt 
they would be heavily taxed, and there was no one to 
attend to them : " So Absalom stole the hearts of the 
men of Israel." At last, when his time was come, he 
obtained leave from his father to go to Hebron, to fulfil 
a vow that he pretended to have made in his banish- 
ment. There he blew a trumpet, caused himself to be 
proclaimed king, and obtained an immense following 
of all the persons whom he had inflamed with discontent. 
With them he advanced on Jerusalem ; and no doubt the 
city itself was disaffected, for, in spite of its exceeding 



WORTHIES. 43 

strength, David durst not await his attack there, but 
quitted the place in haste, sending his wives and children 
away for protection. 

Never was there a sadder scene than when that great 
warrior and prince went from the city his own sword 
had won, expelled in his old age by his ungrateful son, 
whom he still loved so earnestly. Barefoot he went, with 
ashes on his head, down the steep pathway of the rocky 
ravine of Kedron, and on the other side of the narrow 
valley ran, scoffing and triumphing, a kinsman of the 
family of Saul, railing at him, and crying, " Come out, 
thou bloody man : the Lord hath returned on thee all the 
blood of the house of Saul." David's heart was already 
very sore with respect to that family, for Mephibosheth, 
the lame son of his beloved Jonathan, whom he had 
placed at his own table, and recovered to all the private 
possessions of his grandfather, had, he was told by Ziba, 
the steward of this recovered property, remained behind at 
Jerusalem, ungratefully hoping to raise a party to confer 
on him the crown of Saul ; and when Abishai, that 
passionately affectionate nephew, who had once brought 
the water from the well of Bethlehem, w T ould fain have 
darted across the valley to slay the reviler, the sorrow- 
stricken king withheld him, saying, " The LORD hath said 
to him, Curse David." 

The king was by no means wholly deserted in his 
distress. Joab seems to have gone to raise the loyal in 
his favour. His faithful Philistine guards followed him, 
though he generously tried to persuade them that they 
were not bound by duty to his service ; and the Priests 
themselves would have carried the Ark with him, but that 
he would not expose it to danger in his wanderings. 
Ahithophel, the grandfather of Bathsheba, had gone over 
to Absalom ; but Hushai, another councillor famed for 
wisdom, came to his king's assistance, and was told by 



44 THE BOOK OF 

David that he could most efficiently serve him by pre- 
tending to espouse Absalom's cause, and endeavouring to 
defeat the counsel of Ahithophel. Other loyal followers 
were with the king, and, above all, such spiritual comforts 
were poured into his soul, that in this the saddest time of 
his life many of his most plaintive, yet most cheering, 
songs were composed. After that weary, sorrowful day, 
when the wild wilderness leading towards Jordan had 
been trodden by David and Abishai, with steps very unlike 
the bounding tread of the undismayed cheery young out- 
laws they had once been on those same rocks and hills, and 
when the mournful band of fugitives had rested for a long 
night of watching and guard, lest they should be pursued 
by Absalom's overwhelming force, there rose in the morn- 
ing this song of thankfulness : — 

" Lord, how are they increased that trouble me ! 

Many are they that rise against me. 
Many one there be that say of my soul, 

1 There is no help for him in his God. ' 
But thou, Lord, art my defender ; 

Thou art my worship, and the lifter up of my head. 
I did call unto the Lord with my voice, 

And he heard me out of his holy hill. 
I laid me down, and slept ; 

And rose up again ; for the Lord sustained me. 
I will not be afraid for ten thousands of the people 

That have set themselves against me round about. 
Up, Lord, and help me, O my God : for thou smitest 
mine enemies upon the cheek-bone ; 

Thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly. 
Salvation belongeth unto the Lord ; 

And thy blessing is upon thy people." 

That safe awakening had not been owing to want of 
foresight on Ahithophel's part. He had advised Absalom 
to follow and surprise his father while weary and weak- 
handed, this familiar friend truly laying great wait for his 
master ; but Hushai had represented that David was a 



WORTHIES. 45 

mighty man of war, and would be fierce as a bear robbed 
of her whelps, and advised waiting to collect more forces 
before attacking him. The overruling power that pro- 
tected David had made Absalom incline to Hushai's 
counsel, so much to the anger of Ahithophel that he actu- 
ally went home and hanged himself, probably because he 
saw his party must fail, and could not bear to face the 
king he had deserted. Meantime Hushai, through the 
priest's sons, despatched a warning to David, without loss 
of time to put the river Jordan between him and his 
enemies. 

Here then he came to the outmost borders of his land, 
to Mahanaim, the place consecrated by one of Jacob's 
visions, and where Ishbosheth had so long reigned, near his 
recent conquest of Rabbah. Grand, beautiful, and fertile 
is that pasture-land, with lovely meadows, rich cornfields, 
and magnificent oaks clothing every hill-side, among the 
giant cities that were chosen by half the tribe of Manasseh. 
There the princely old chieftain Barzillai showed himself 
most loyal, and amply provided for the wants of the fugi- 
tive king and his troops out of his own mighty stores ; 
and there, it may be, the sorrowful king and father 
sang the saddest and most prophetic of all his Psalms. 
When looking out at the fierce high-fed cattle closing in 
with their horns on some helpless creature who had 
crossed their field, he thought of his own foes besetting 
him, and sighed that — 

" Many oxen are come about me ; 
Fat bulls of Bashan close me in on every side : " 

and then went on — carried out of his own sufferings into 
a foreboding of that mightier sorrow that is unlike all 
other sorrows, and yet like them all. 

Meantime the forces were gathered on either side : the 
disloyal, who wanted an ordinary, fierce, godless prince, 



46 THE BOOK OF 

who would lead them to battle, feed their pride, not 
trouble them with devotion, and be another Saul, had 
gathered round Absalom ; and the loyal, who loved the 
great name of David, the Chosen of the Lord, flocked to 
the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. 

All was prepared for battle, and David would himself 
have acted as general, in the hope, it would seem, of being 
able to save the life of his guilty son ; for when Joab and 
his other captains insisted on his not exposing his life, 
but remaining with the reserve in the city, all his entreaty 
was, " Deal gently with the young man, even with Absa- 
lom." The battle took place in what was called the 
Wood of Ephraim, probably from the slaughter Jephthah 
had thereabouts once made of the perverse Ephraimites. 
It was part of the grand forest-land of Gilead, broken 
ground covered with terebinth trees and luxuriant vegeta- 
tion ; and when Absalom's forces, ill generalled, and with 
hearts full of misgiving, broke their ranks under the 
assault of Joab and his well-practised mighty men of war, 
the wild depths of the tangled forest proved as fatal to the 
rebels as the sword itself. Absalom himself, riding away 
on a mule, became entangled in the branches of a tere- 
binth tree. His head seems to have been jammed 
between two strong boughs, and his luxuriant hair added 
to the difficulty of disengaging himself ; the mule made its 
escape from under him, and he was seen thus hanging in 
the tree by one of the pursuers, who told Joab where to 
find him. The unscrupulous captain of the host, knowing 
that David would assuredly spare his son's life, resolved 
that he should have no choice ; and taking three javelins, 
thrust his unhappy cousin through with them, while yet 
suspended in the tree ; hoping, perhaps, that he could 
represent Absalom's fate to the king as having taken 
place in the ordinary chances of battle. 

David's grief was intense. He sung no elegy over the 



WORTHIES. 47 

rebel, but his broken-hearted cry, "Would God I had 
died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son ! " has ever 
since resounded in every heart. And it was only by the 
rough and harsh words of Joab that he could be roused 
from his grief enough to thank his brave deliverers. He 
could not, however, forget that Joab was the murderer of 
his son, and so far punished him as to put him down 
from his generalship of the whole army, raising in his 
stead Amasa, the son of another daughter of Jesse, on 
the plea, as it would seem, that Amasa, who had taken 
part with Absalom, must be won over to his side. 

The people of Israel had entirely changed their minds. 
They were now fervent in their passionate affection for 
the great old monarch against whom they had so lately 
rebelled. There was universal triumph when he was 
brought back to his own city, and the lurking jealousy of 
the ten tribes against that of Judah only showed itself in 
a dispute as to which should be foremost in bringing back 
the king. The reviler Shimei came with abject humility 
to entreat the pardon that David freely granted to him, 
and Mephibosheth came forth, with hair and beard un- 
trimmed since the king had been driven away, to explain 
that he had called for his ass, in order to accompany his 
benefactor, but that the perfidious Ziba had taken ad- 
vantage of his lameness to leave him behind and helpless, 
while representing to David that he was acting trea- 
sonably in the desire of putting forward his pretensions 
to the throne. David had in his first anger made over all 
Mephibosheth's lands to Ziba, and he now only revoked 
the grant so far as to give back half to their rightful 
owner, probably because Ziba, as resident steward, with 
his fifteen sons and twenty servants, could hardly have 
been dispossessed of lands in the Benjamite mountains 
without perilling the newly-recovered throne ; and Mephi- 
bosheth, with all the generosity of his father, acquiesced, 



48 THE BOOK OF 

saying, " Yea, let him take all, forasmuch as my lord the 
king is come again in peace to his own house." 

David would have requited the hospitality of the large- 
hearted Barzillai by welcoming him at Jerusalem ; but the 
grand old pastoral chief loved his free woods and hills too 
well to shut himself up within the walls of a city. He 
said he was too old to enjoy the feasts and music of the 
court, but prayed that in his stead the king would take his 
son or grandson Chimham, and do with him what might 
seem good to him. There is reason to think that David 
rewarded Chimham with a grant of lands at his own dear 
Bethlehem, for the wayside halting-place there for travel- 
lers from Egypt was long after called the habitation of 
Chimham, and was almost certainly that inn in whose 
stable the great Son of David was born. 

David had not for long freed himself from the rude 
dominion of Joab, for when a rebellion was excited by a 
man named Sheba, Amasa proved so slack in collecting 
an army against him, that David was obliged to send 
Abishai to quicken his movements ; and, while pursuing 
the rebel, Joab most treacherously murdered Amasa. 
David was unable to do justice on him, partly from his 
great influence with the army, but partly also, it is 
thought, because Joab was privy to the deadly secret of 
Uriah's murder. 

Joab does seem to have had a hearty affection for his 
uncle, though it was the rude domineering love of a coarser 
nature ; and his ungodly, cruel temper could only admire 
David as the warrior, not as the holy man. Yet Joab 
did his best to save David from the last great error of 
his life. 

The pious work of collecting marbles, cedar, gold, 
silver, and all that could serve to beautify the Temple that 
young Solomon was to raise, was the chief joy of David's 
later years. Now, it had been commanded by the Divine 



WORTHIES. 49 

Law that whenever a census of the people was taken, a 
half shekel should be paid by every man whose name 
was enrolled, to serve as an acknowledgment that pur- 
chase or atonement was due for his soul, and this money 
was appropriated to the repairs or building of the Sanc- 
tuary. Pestilence had been threatened by the law as the 
penalty of neglect. David, desirous both to count his 
fighting men and to add to the treasures preparing for the 
Temple, commanded a census to be taken, but Joab, pro- 
bably participating in the people's sinful discontent at 
their king's zeal for God's house, and knowing that they 
would regard the numbering as an excuse for demanding 
the money, remonstrated against the measure which he, as 
captain of the host, was to carry out. 

The King, however, persisted ; and Joab probably fore- 
bore to insist on the payment because of its unpopularity, 
for the Israelites incurred the penalty, and before the 
numbers were complete, the prophet Gad came to David 
to warn him that he had been the occasion of sin to his 
people, and that the penalty had been incurred. Still a 
choice was offered him between three years of famine, three 
months of devastation by the enemy, or three days of 
pestilence. 

David's answer, " Let me now fall into the hands of the 
Lord, for his mercies are great ; let me not fall into the 
hands of man," seems to have been a refusal of the sad 
choice, leaving that to God alone, and thus the punish- 
ment sent was that which the original command had 
threatened, namely, pestilence. The deadly sickness cut 
off 70,000 in three days, and David absolutely beheld, on 
one of those dreadful days, what seems to have been the 
only supernatural vision of his life : he saw the Angel of 
Vengeance with his sword uplifted against Jerusalem i 

The tribe of Benjamin had not yet been numbered. 
There the penalty had not yet been incurred, and David in 
E 



50 THE BOOK OF 

agony prayed, " Let thy hand be on me, and on my father's 
house; but, these sheep, what have they done?" The 
prophet Gad was sent, in answer to his prayers, with direc- 
tions to offer a sacrifice of atonement to avert the plague ; 
and for this purpose David purchased the level space on the 
top of a hill just outside the walls, where Araunah, or Oman, 
a great chieftain of the ancient Jebusites, was wont to tread 
out his corn by the feet of oxen, but which had been early 
hallowed by the sacrifice of Isaac. This sacred spot, with 
the oxen and their wooden instruments for threshing, was 
bought at a large price by David ; Araunah would freely 
have given it, but the king felt that an offering of atone- 
ment must not cost him nothing, and secured the spot, 
which he then designated as the place for the future 
temple — the dream of his life which he might not see, 
even as Moses trod not on the soil of the promised land. 

He had yet another glad and peaceful day, when he col- 
lected all his great men from every tribe, and set before 
them his fair and gracious son Solomon as the chosen 
of the Lord to wear his crown, and fulfil his work, that 
holy work of building the Temple of the LORD. Chief- 
tain and warrior, excited by the king's pious ardour, 
made willing offerings from their wealth to deck the 
edifice for glory and for beauty, and the king in the joy 
of his heart burst forth into the loftiest of all his songs 
of praise, one of those whose echo is most surely heard in 
Heaven : — 

" Blessed be Thou, Lord God of Israel our Father, for 
ever and ever. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the 
power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty : for 
all that is in the heaven and the earth is Thine ; Thine is 
the kingdom, O Lord, and Thou art exalted as Head 
above all. Both riches and honour come of Thee, and 
Thou reignest over all ; and in Thine hand is power and 
might ; and in Thine hand it is to make great, and to give 



WORTHIES. 51 

strength unto all. Now therefore, our God, we thank 
Thee, and praise Thy glorious name. But who am I, 
and what is my people, that we shall be able to offer so 
willingly after this sort ? for all things come of Thee, and 
of Thine own have we given Thee ! ; ' 

Other equally noble words he added, which must be 
sought in the last chapter of the first book of Chronicles. 
They show how, his warfare accomplished, this great and 
holy man was waiting with healed wounds and peaceful 
spirit for the crown laid up for him in Heaven. 

His life had been, in his own sweet words, " as the 
tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining 
after rain ;" and fresh hope, thankfulness, and joy had 
sprung out of his heaviest sorrows. He had reached the 
good old age, and not only saw a son of the greatest 
promise ready to succeed him, but knew that his throne 
and kingdom were secured to his lineage for ever, and 
that the plan of his life would be carried out after his 
death. Eastern monarchs had the full right to choose 
their successor among their sons, and indeed, Solomon 
had rather been God's choice than David's ; but Adoni- 
jah, the eldest surviving son, as beautiful, proud, and 
wilful as Absalom, had been, felt himself aggrieved, and 
no doubt appealed to the old ungodly impatience of the 
cost of the Temple, for he won over to his side Joab him- 
self, who had no feeling for the peaceful wisdom and 
gentleness of young Solomon, but would fain see the war- 
like spirit of David's younger days renewed. With him, 
too, was Abiathar, the fugitive Priest who had joined 
David after Saul's slaughter of his family, and who, 
not being the high priest by rightful descent, probably 
dreaded being displaced in favour of Zadok, the true 
heir. These two, and other partizans, escorted Adonijah 
to some gardens outside the walls of Jerusalem, and there 
made a sacrificial feast, evidently as an assertion of his 
E 2 



52 THE BOOK OF 

claims to the throne. Informed by Bathsheba and Nathan, 
David, though very feeble, roused himself to summon his 
trusty and loyal servants, and cause them to take Solomon 
forth before the people, and there let Zadok and Nathan 
anoint him with the consecrating oil, and seat him on the 
throne. The whole city rang with glad shouts of " God 
save King Solomon," and the hostile party in alarm 
broke up, Adonijah flying to the Sanctuary on Mount 
Sion, where he remained till assured of pardon, while 
Solomon returned to his father for his blessing of thank- 
ful joy. 

A strong and deep sense of justice, however, made 
David warn Solomon that it would be for him to inflict 
on Joab the punishment he himself had never been able 
to execute : and Joab was accordingly put to death, for this 
his last treason, as well as for all the crimes of his earlier 
life, apparently not, however, till after David's eyes had 
closed in his last sleep, in the 70th year of his life, the 
fortieth of his reign, B.C. 1014. 

Where shall we find such another Worthy ? Truly it 
were presumptuous to seek the equal of the " man after 
God's own heart," save that, in the Christian times, purer 
light and indwelling grace has made it possible that not 
merely the morning, but the entire day of life, should be 
without clouds. 

Shepherd, warrior, exile, king, lawgiver, poet, founder 
of a great dynasty, David in a wonderful degree unites 
every kind of earthly grandeur. In the minute history of 
his life we see his gallant outward life ; in his psalms we 
see the tender sensitiveness of the spirit that showed so 
free and dauntless. We see there why he could be 
happy, why he could be brave, why, after suffering, and 
even after crime, he could recover calm and rest, and how 
blessed is the soul that constantly remained in loving 
communion with the God of his strength. 



WORTHIES. 53 



HECTOR. 



The first of the three Worthies of the classic world 
chosen by our forefathers was Hector. It is strange to 
pass from the most true to the most uncertain, but as we 
are here trying to tread as far as possible in the steps of 
our ancestors in our study of great examples ; and also 
since we have just seen the highest models of the Heroic 
which were held up to those who lived under Divine 
revelation ; it is well to pass to the grandest portraits of 
character invented by the human mind when left to itself, 

It is scarcely true, however, to say that Hector was the 
highest ideal of the ancients themselves. Circumstances 
led to his being the favourite in the Middle Ages, partly be- 
cause the classic heroes had become chiefly known through 
Latin writings which were favourable to Hector's cause, 
and partly because there are elements in his nature, as 
originally depicted, which are more congenial to a Christian 
than are the dispositions of his enemies. 

In order to have any understanding of the persons we 
have to study, it is needful to know what were the objects 
of their chief admiration, and therefore, together with 
Hector, we will try to describe the other two chief Heroes 
who were admired in ancient times, namely, Achilles and 
Ulysses, the three together perhaps making the highest 
perfection that the Greeks could conceive. According to 
the old attempts at chronology, these personages should 



54 THE BOOK OF 

have been placed before, instead of after, David, as they 
were supposed to be contemporary with Saul ; but in very 
truth the whole of their adventures are so unhistorical, 
that it is a futile endeavour to assign to them any date. 
All that we do know is that the glorious poems of Homer 
which have endeared them to all ages, were current 
among the Greeks, and known by heart by every edu- 
cated man among them, at the time when the kingdom 
of David had become divided, and was tottering to its fall 
under the apostasy and misgovernment of his degenerate 
descendants. 

Near the gulf-indented coast of Asia Minor, towards 
the north-west extremity, there lies beneath the forest-clad 
mountains of Ida a space of undulating ground, partly 
woodland and partly glade, and traversed by two moun- 
tain streams, yellow, or xanthous Simois, and the lesser 
Scamander, on their way to the sea. The place has 
been looked on for the last 2,500 years, by every man 
of culture and spirit, with an affection and enthusiasm 
such as have centred equally on no other spot upon 
the earth. There was the site of the mighty city of 
Asiatics, which for its crimes was besieged and taken by 
the united forces of Greece under the leadership of her 
greatest heroes, and the places and scenery are so exactly 
described in the great poems respecting it as to be trace- 
able even to the present hour. 

The facts, thus supported, were firmly believed in, so far 
as they did not involve manifestly fabulous incidents, and 
only in late ages did any question arise of the main event. 
Of late, comparison has made it evident that all those 
imaginative nations, who have sprung from the same source 
as ourselves, love to believe in grand and noble forefathers, 
half divine, and performers of magnificent feats. Certain 
likenesses between these exploits and between the heroes 
who achieved them have further led learned men to the 



WORTHIES. SS 

conclusion that they are all different traditions, of the 
same original story ; and further investigation of the 
names borne by the different personages has brought 
some to the belief that, instead of being founded on any 
doings of men or women on earth, these tales arose from 
a sort of allegorical way of speaking of day and night, 
sunrise and sunset, or else that these allegorical stories 
fastened themselves upon some real persons or events, 
and embellished them, as well as confused them. 

No one can now tell whether there were any kernel of 
reality around which the poetic and heroic tales fastened 
themselves that were sung of and believed by the ancient 
Greeks. There were many tales and songs of them that 
were stored in the memory of the bards or poets who 
went from one chief city to another, chanting them to the 
lyre. One of these poets, blind Homer, made his songs 
of such exceeding force and beauty, so grand in character 
and so true to nature, that they could not be forgotten. 
After some generations they were collected and written 
down, and though they only related the history of a 
fortnight's discord in the camp and the return of one 
wanderer to his home, yet all besides that can be learnt 
of the stories of the whole war seems little more than 
mere explanation of them. 

And now, forgetting all that has been said of the doubt- 
fulness of the story, let us give ourselves up to the interest 
of it, and look well at the three who were chiefly esteemed 
by the men of old Greek times. 

Once upon a time, there lived at Sparta a most beautiful 
Queen, whose name was Helen, and who was married to a 
prince called Menelaus. There came to Sparta a young 
prince named Paris, one of the handsomest men in all the 
world, but selfish, cowardly, arid deceitful. He returned 
all the kindness that Menelaus had shown to him by basely 
stealing his beautiful wife, and carrying her away to his 



56 THE BOOK OF 

own home on the shores of Asia Minor — Ilium or Troy, 
of which his father Priam was king. 

The cruel wrong that Menelaus had suffered stirred 
the spirit of all the other Greeks, and they demanded that 
Helen should be given back, and all amends possible 
made to her husband ; but the Trojans chose to stand by 
their prince, bad as was his cause, rather than own him 
or themselves in the wrong. The brother of Menelaus was 
Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, the chief king in all Greece, 
and all the princes brought together their ships and their 
men under his command to sail for Troy. Among them 
came Ulysses, the wisest of all the Greeks, from his little 
island of Ithaca ; and Achilles, the son of Peleus, king of 
Phthia, most beautiful, most brave and gifted, as befitted 
one who had no mortal mother, but was born of a nymph 
of the sea. It had been foretold that if Achilles did not go 
to this war, he would have a long, prosperous, but inglorious 
life, but that if he joined in it, his glory would be very 
great, but his days would be few. He chose glory rather 
than length of days, and with his bosom friend Patroclus, 
and all his brave warriors, joined the Grecian host. 

Hector was the most valiant and the most beloved of 
all the many sons of old King Priam of Troy, far nobler 
than Paris, in whose cause, nevertheless, he was obliged 
to peril the loss of his life and throne. At first, it would 
seem as if the Greeks had chiefly occupied themselves 
in conquering the outlying possessions and the allies of 
Troy, but in the tenth year of the war they had their ships 
all drawn up on the sea-shore, close before Troy, and were 
living in tents in front of them, fighting whenever the Tro- 
jans sallied out against them, but not daring to scale the 
walls, because they were supposed to have been built by 
two of the gods, who would certainly take revenge on 
any one who assaulted them. 

It is at this time that Homer's great poem of the Iliad 



WORTHIES, 57 

begins, by telling that in one of the attacks upon the 
coast two damsels had been carried off as slaves, and 
given, one to Agamemnon and the other to Achilles, as 
their part of the spoil. But soon after a deadly pestilence 
fell upon the camp, and it was made known to Agamem- 
non that it would not cease till he had restored his 
captive to her father, priest of the god Apollo, who had 
power over sickness and death. Agamemnon was forced 
to part with his prize ; but he declared in his pride that 
he would not lose his share, and would have instead the 
damsel who had been given to Achilles. This was a great 
insult to a king like Achilles, and especially to the very 
man whose bravery had won all that the Greeks had yet 
gained. Achilles' wrath was great. He was too dignified 
not to let the fair Briseis be quietly led from his tent by 
Ulysses and the other princes whom Agamemnon sent 
to bring her away, but he made a deep vow that he would 
not again draw his sword in the cause of Agamemnon or 
his brother, and would leave them to fight their battles 
without him. 

The Greeks were the bravest warriors in the earth, 
but none of them was quite the equal of Achilles in 
strength, swiftness, or the use of their weapons. The 
cause of Troy began to prosper. The gallant Hector 
is shown as he was in his own home. Whilst the battle 
for a time somewhat abated outside the walls, he re- 
turned into the town to desire his mother, Queen He- 
cuba, to repair with her ladies to the temple of the goddess 
Pallas, to pray for her favour ; and he then went in search 
of his own wife Andromache, a princess whose family had 
been all killed in the course of the war, but who found that 
his tender affection for her made up for all she had lost. 
She, with her little son, Astyanax, and his nurse, had gone 
out to watch for her husband from the walls, and he met 
her returning. Then there was a most sweet and loving 



53 THE BOOK OF 

scene between them, while Andromache clung to him, and 
besought him to remember that she had none to love but 
him, and to take care of himself, and Hector, while fully 
bent upon his duty to his father and country, still spoke 
with sad foreboding that both he and the city were doomed, 
and must fall, grieving chiefly at the thought that it might 
be her lot to be led into captivity by some proud Greek, 
and pointed at as having been Hector's wife ! Then, as 
if to comfort her after the misgivings he had expressed, 
he held out his arms for his child ; but the babe did not 
know him in his helmet, and he had to take it off and lay it 
aside before he could hold the young Astyanax in his arms, 
and then, lifting him up towards heaven, he prayed that 
his boy might live and prosper, and win even a greater 
name than his father. Afterwards Hector went to find his 
brother Paris, who was idly amusing himself in Helen's 
apartments, as if he had not been the cause of all the evil, 
and, with strong upbraiding words, brought the dastard 
out to the battle again, though only to use his bow and 
arrows, which were thought cowardly weapons compared 
with the spear and sword. 

All the great men on both sides fought in chariots — 
open cars, very low, and drawn by either two or three 
horses, which were very much prized and loved, and gene- 
rally driven by the nearest and dearest friend of their 
master. A store of spears was carried in these chariots, 
and launched at the enemy ; and when one of these had 
inflicted a wound, it was easy to leap out of the car, which 
was open behind, run up to him, kill him outright, and 
strip him of his armour. Prisoners were very seldom 
made in battle, and there was none of that gentler 
Christian feeling that has taught us to regard it as 
shameful to strike a man who is down, or to insult a 
fallen enemy. To boast over the vanquished before giving 
the death-blow was plainly looked on as one of the most 



WORTHIES. 59 

agreeable enjoyments of a conquest, and Hector, though 
so gentle at home, was one of those whose tongue was 
most ready with these vaunts. Nor was there in those 
times any scruple as to attacking a sleeping enemy, 
nor in uttering falsehoods to deceive the foe. Certain 
oaths and mutual engagements were always honourably 
kept, at whatever cost ; but that lying was wrong in itself 
the Greeks never guessed, and they called many things 
prudence that we should call cunning. 

The absence of Achilles enabled the Trojans to gain 
such advantages that they ventured to sleep outside their 
walls with their chariots beside them, and their horses 
tethered near, so as to be ready early the next morning to 
attack the rampart of earth that the Greeks had thrown 
up to protect their camp and ships. The Greeks were in 
much anxiety. A deputation was sent by Agamemnon, 
consisting of Ulysses, of Diomed, the fiercest of all the 
Greeks, and of old Phoenix, who had watched and tended 
the infancy of Achilles, to offer all sorts of amends, and 
entreat him to return to the combat. Achilles received 
and feasted them with his unfailing graceful courtesy, but 
he would not lay aside his implacable wrath. He declared 
his purpose of sailing back to Phthia, and kept Phcenix 
in his tent to return with him, while the other messengers 
he dismissed, in all friendship to themselves, but keeping 
up his bitter hatred to Agamemnon. 

That night Ulysses and Diomed stole out to spy the 
Trojan camp, and as no watch was kept, they succeeded 
in making a great slaughter of sleeping men ; and more- 
over they came on a newly-arrived Trojan ally named 
Rhesus, who had never yet entered Troy, but lay asleep 
among his troops. This poor man they slew, and 
carried off his beautiful white horses, which fell to Dio- 
med's lot. 

Nevertheless, the ensuing day was a dreadful one for 



60 THE BOOK OF 

the Greeks : Ulysses, Diomed, Agamemnon himself, and 
almost all their best champions, were wounded, and Hector 
with the Trojans broke through the rampart, and fought 
hard to set fire to the fleet. The tents and ships of Achilles 
were so far off that he could not see what was passing ; 
but the cries he heard made him send out Patroclus for 
tidings. Patroclus met wounded men coming bleeding 
home, and tarried to bind their wounds, and at last, as 
worse and worse news came, he hurried back to Achilles, 
and besought him, if he would not fight himself, at least 
to let him (Patroclus) lead out his men, and save the 
Greeks from utter defeat and destruction. 

Achilles was moved to consent. He armed Patroclus 
with his own armour, placed him in his own chariot, 
and sent him forth at the head of his troops, expressly 
commanding him, however, not to do more than save 
the camp, and not to chase the Trojans back to their 
own walls. 

The appearance of Patroclus turned the fortune of the 
day ; he killed some of the most noted Trojan chiefs and 
their friends, and drove the rest beyond the wall ; but in the 
ardour of the pursuit he forgot his prince's warning, and 
not only hunted Hector out of the camp, but followed him 
up to the very walls of the city, and even launched a spear 
against the sacred battlements, thus provoking the anger 
of the Sun God, Apollo, who had built them. In his 
wrath the god loosened the helmet of Patroclus, and 
rendered him dizzy and helpless ; and while he was in this 
state he was struck by Hector, cast to the ground, and 
then slain, with the usual boastful insults. Hector tore 
off some of his beautiful armour ; but the Greeks poured 
in to rescue his body, and a dreadful combat raged over 
it, with almost equal fortune for a long time, until the 
tidings were carried to Achilles. He sprang up. He had no 
weapons, no armour, but he hastened to the breach in the 



WORTHIES, 61 

rampart, and standing there, gave a mighty battle-shout 
that echoed over all the plain, and so used were the Tro- 
jans to fly at his voice that they all ceased from fighting, 
and hurried back to their city in confusion and dread. 

The friendship of Achilles and Patroclus had been 
most warm and tender, and when the lifeless body was 
borne home, Achilles' grief and lamentations were most wild 
and passionate. He was, indeed, suffering for his fierce 
anger ; and in the cruel loss he had endured he was ready 
to forget everything but his keen desire to be revenged 
upon Hector. Agamemnon was willing, indeed, to return 
Briseis to him, with a full and manly confession of having 
done wrong, and large gifts by way of atonement, and 
Achilles with free generosity accepted his excuse, and 
forgave. 

He would not eat nor drink till his friend had been 
revenged ; and when his mother had brought him new 
and glorious armour, forged by the divine armourer, he 
went forth to the deadly battle, burning with indignation. 
After a great slaughter of Trojans, he encountered Hector 
himself, and at his dreadful aspect the Trojan prince fled 
on foot, pursued by the swift-footed Achilles, who hunted 
him three times round the walls of his native city ere at 
length he made a stand, thinking he saw one of his 
brothers ready to assist him ; but it was a cruel delusion, 
and Achilles coming up with him, gave him a mortal 
blow, and stood over him as he died, refusing sternly his 
last entreaty that his corpse might be given back to his 
father. 

This refusal was not so much out of cruelty, as to do 
honour to the funeral rites of his friend, who had been slain 
by Hector. But the other Greeks had not the same 
excuse when each in turn struck at the corpse in revenge 
for his former attacks, and Achilles finally dragged it to 
his tent, fastened by thongs through the ancles, and left it 



62 THE BOOK OF 

lying on the sand. Then he celebrated the obsequies of 
Patroclus after the Greek fashion. A huge pile was built 
up of trunks of trees, the body was laid on the top upon 
rich and costly robes, and bestrewn with fragrant spices, 
and fire was then set to the whole. While it was burning 
Achilles dragged the corpse of Hector round it behind 
his chariot. When the flames had burnt long enough 
they were quenched in wine, and the ashes of the body 
were placed in a golden or marble urn. Without these 
rites the soul was supposed to be unable to cross the dark 
waters that divided it from the place of rest, and there- 
fore to remain neglected on the field was the greatest 
misfortune that could be imagined. 

The father, mother, and wife of Hector grieved even 
more over the desolate state of his spirit than over his 
death, and at last old Priam took courage to creep at 
night into the camp and entreat Achilles to let him ran- 
som his son's corpse. Achilles never appeared to greater 
advantage than in this interview. Sometimes, indeed, 
he felt stirrings of bitter hate against Priam, as the king 
of those who had slain his beloved Patroclus ; but when 
he recollected his own old father, who might soon thus 
grieve for him, he pitied and wept with the aged king, and 
seeing him spent with fasting and sorrow, made him eat and 
drink, and lie down to sleep on soft carpets and fleeces, 
and took care for his safe return with the body of his son, 
as well as that a truce should be granted to Troy long 
enough for the obsequies to be duly celebrated. 

Here ends the Iliad, having shown Hector a loving and 
tender husband, a dutiful son, and a gallant defender 
of his country, though scarcely so brave as many of the 
Greeks besides Achilles. It is the sadness of being 
champion of a losing cause that has chiefly endeared 
him to most minds, and Achilles' own consciousness 
of .his doom gives him much of the same interest. The 



WORTHIES. 63 

tenderness of Achilles' heart, and the dignity of all he 
does or says, combine, too, with his generosity to make 
him be regarded as worthy of all honour, as well as with 
the admiration due to his transcendant strength, courage, 
and beauty. The haughty pride, the unbending anger, 
the bloody revenge, were thought only merits by the 
heathens, whose model he was ; and indeed, as Homer 
drew him, he had more compassion and pity than any 
other man of his time, so well did Homer know that the 
most truly brave would be the most truly gentle. 

Achilles soon met his fate, being treacherously slain by 
an arrow from the bow of Paris. He had left a young son 
at home named Pyrrhus, who was just old enough to be 
sent for to join the Grecian host, and soon after Paris was 
struck by a poisoned arrow. He went back to his first 
love, CEnone, a shepherdess on Mount Ida, whom he had 
deserted for Helen, in hopes she could heal him ; but she 
failed to do so, and he died, leaving his name a bye- word 
of disgrace. Still, however, Troy held out, even though 
Ulysses and Diomed by night climbed the walls, and 
stole away a little image of the goddess Pallas, which 
was thought a charm to secure the city from being 
taken. 

At last Ulysses devised a plan, according to which all the 
Greeks embarked and sailed away, abandoning the siege, 
and leaving nothing behind them but an enormous horse 
made of timber, which stood on the sea-shore ; and when 
the Trojans came rejoicing out, a stray Greek who fell 
into their hands informed them that it had been revealed 
by the gods that if they once brought this huge fabrica- 
tion inside their walls it would protect them as well as the 
lost Palladium. Into the city then it was dragged by men, 
women, and children, all in raptures, and never suspect- 
ing that within it lay hidden Ulysses himself, Menelaus, 
Diomed, Pyrrhus, and all the boldest warriors of Greece. 



64 THE BOOK OF 

When all was still they broke forth, opened the gates to 
their comrades, who were only hidden in the woods, and 
all Troy was blood and fire. 

Priam was killed on his own altar ; Helen was captured 
by her husband ; poor little Astyanax was dashed headlong 
from the battlements of the wall ; and Andromache, his 
mother, became the slave of Pyrrhus. No one escaped 
with freedom except those who followed i£neas, a prince 
of the royal line of Troy, who, after many wanderings 
and adventures, reached Italy, and was regarded as the 
ancestor of the founder of Rome. So savage was the 
Greek vengeance, so little in their reckless fury did the 
victors regard the holiness of the temples, that they pro- 
voked the wrath of the gods, and they encountered great 
misfortunes in their return. 

Agamemnon was murdered by his wicked wife ; Mene- 
laus was shipwrecked on the Egyptian coast, and 
reached home with great difficulty ; and the sufferings of 
Ulysses form the subject of Homefs second poem, the 
Odyssey.* 

It would take too long to attempt to relate all the 
adventures and miseries that are there told. Like the 
Iliad, the Odyssey must be read for itself, and there are 
translations that give the story and the spirit of the 
characters so as to make them delightful, even to those 
who cannot read them in their own grand language. All 
through the poem Ulysses is shown as a grave, earnest, 
resolute man, so firmly attached to his small, barren, rocky 
home in Ithaca, and to his wife and son, that no labour or 
danger, no promises of ease or prosperity, could change his 
constant resolution to make his way back to them. He 
never flinched for a moment, nor lost his steady courage 
and resource through any variety of peril, even though 

* So called because Odysseus is the Greek form of Ulysses. 



WORTHIES. 65 

driven by strange winds to strange coasts, where his 
followers fell a prey one after another, sometimes to 
savage natives, sometimes to the winds and waves, some- 
times to their own folly, till the last ship went down, 
and he, the sole survivor, was cast up by the waves on 
the shore of a lovely and delicious island, where a sort 
of goddess-queen of the nymphs kept him a captive for 
seven years, trying to persuade him to marry her, and 
even offering to make him immortal like the gods. 

But the faithful Ulysses refused even these temptations, 
for the love of his dear wife Penelope and of his beloved 
Ithaca, and spent all his days in gazing over the waters 
and longing to return, until at length a message from the 
great gods above forced the queen of the island to allow 
him to build a raft of timber and put to sea upon it. His 
constancy and courage, and his devout trust in the great 
goddess of wisdom, Pallas, who therefore loved and 
aided him with all her might, are most beautiful and high- 
minded ; but the Greek pattern of virtue did not include 
truth. Ulysses, in what is meant for prudence, is always 
paining us by what (in our English Christian judgment) 
is falsehood, and sometimes treachery ; and it is worthy of 
remark that from the first ages to the present day — even 
though Greece has been Christian much longer than our 
own country — lying has been the fault most common there ; 
so much so, that it would be hard to persuade a Greek 
that falsehood is a sin. So true is it that it is very dan- 
gerous to the character to set up an imperfect standard 
and then admire it. 

While Ulysses was wandering, his wife Penelope was 
beset with difficulties. Scarcely any hope of his return 
was entertained, and all the young chiefs and nobles of 
the adjacent islands came to try to obtain her hand and 
her riches. She tried to put them off, by saying that it 
would be disgraceful to her to marry till she had spun and 
F 



66 THE BOOK OF 

woven a winding-sheet for old Laertes, Ulysses' father, 
who lived in a beautiful garden near the shore. And to 
prevent herself from finishing it, she every night unra- 
velled all the work she had completed by day, until one of 
her slave-women betrayed her. 

Meanwhile, all her suitors, to the number of fifty, had 
established themselves in the palace, eating and drinking 
with intolerable riot and revelry, and insulting every one 
who attempted to interfere with them, even her son Tele- 
machus, who had grown to man's estate in the twenty 
years of his father's absence, but who was unable to drive 
them away, having no power of his own. 

He had just made a voyage to Greece to ask Menelaus 
for tidings of his father ; and returning cautiously to avoid 
danger from the suitors, who would gladly have put him 
to death, he went first to the house of Eumseus, the 
slave who superintended the herds of swine which formed 
great part of the wealth of Ulysses. It was to this same 
good swine-herd's hut that Ulysses, on landing all alone 
in the island, had betaken himself, in order to learn whe- 
ther it would be safe to go up to his own palace. He wore 
the disguise of a beggar ; but Telemachus did not know 
him till the next morning, when father and son wept in 
one another's arms, and counsel was taken as to how 
Ulysses was to recover his palace and throne, and punish 
the suitors. 

In the first place, Telemachus went home and resumed 
his usual place ; and Ulysses, soon after coming up, in all 
appearance a beggar, was recognised by no one save by 
his good old hound Argos, now so utterly neglected and 
decrepit, but the faithful creature barely had strength to 
look up in his master's face, and then died for joy. The 
suitors, rude and lawless men, mocked at the beggar, and 
one of them even threw a footstool at him, and Telema- 
chus, though with boiling anger, might not interfere to 



WORTHIES. 67 

protect him more than he would have done had he been 
really the beggar he seemed. 

Good Penelope, hearing that a shipwrecked stranger 
had come from a great distance, and was misused by the 
suitors, came down to the hall, when they had all gone to 
rest, to see him, and ask whether he could tell her any- 
thing of her husband. Ulysses told her a long feigned 
story, and she never suspected who he was ; but she felt 
much drawn towards him, and when she left him, she 
sent the old nurse Euryclea to offer him a bath, and wait 
on him with oils and unguents, as was the custom with 
honoured guests. 

When Euryclea came to wait on the stranger, she saw 
to her amazement the scar on his thigh of a great gash 
that she well knew to have been inflicted by the tusk of a 
wild boar on Ulysses when quite a youth. The faithful 
old woman knew not whether to rejoice most at the sight 
of him or to lament for his forlorn condition. He insisted 
on her secresy, and having laid his plans with her, he 
slept before the hall fire. 

The next morning, Penelope, w T ho had thought of 
another way of baffling the suitors, came down with her 
husband's bow in her hand, and told them she would 
marry the man who could use that bow. She knew that 
no one save Ulysses had ever been able to bend its 
mighty strength, and that she was safe from any of the 
suitors who might attempt it. They accepted the chal- 
lenge, and even the beggar was to be allowed to make the 
effort — Telemachus, of course, gladly assenting, and Pene- 
lope herself feeling so drawn towards him, that though 
she never guessed who he was, she felt that she should 
far prefer his success to that of any of the suitors, who 
had taken advantage of her loneliness to act most vilely 
towards herself, her son, and their servants. 

The great bow was produced, and several of the 

F2 



68 THE BOOK OF 

strongest of the young men tried to bend it, among others 
Telemachus, who hoped, as he said, thus at least to keep 
his mother to himself; but though he the most nearly 
achieved it, the time of his full strength was not come, 
and he failed. The suitors, wearying of the contest, put 
off the trial of the rest till the banquet should be ended. 
In eating and drinking they were wont to consume the 
greater part of the day, and they sat down as usual to 
their feast in the hall, not perceiving that Telemachus, 
Eumaeus, Euryclea, and another faithful slave who was in 
the secret, had removed all the armour and weapons that 
usually hung upon the walls. 

In the midst of their revelry, in the height of their 
scoffs and jeers, the despised stranger took the bow in his 
hands, and its stubborn strength bent within them as 
though it knew its master. Then fitting an arrow to the 
string, he discharged it full at the throat of the most inso- 
lent of all the unbidden guests, and silenced his boasts 
for ever. One arrow after another followed with unerring 
aim, and Telemachus, Eumaeus and the other slave, did 
their part in the deadly work. Death was most richly 
deserved by the suitors, and their fall was royal justice on 
Ulysses' part. Yet to us it seems as if their slaughter 
was too like the slaying of sheep in their pen — unarmed 
and unable to escape as they were. 

When all were slain, Ulysses caused certain faithless 
servants whom they had corrupted to cleanse the hall 
from the remains of the massacre, before themselves 
sharing the same fate. Then Euryclea was sent to fetch 
her mistress, who had been shut up with the other women 
of the household in their own apartments while the work 
of vengeance was going on. Even then, Penelope was 
slow to know him again, so much was he changed, so long 
had they been parted, so greatly did she fear being de- 
ceived by an impostor. Only when he spoke of what 



WORTHIES. 69 

none but himself could know, namely, of the living, rooted 
olive-stem that he had fashioned into- a support for their 
bed, did she become convinced that she indeed beheld 
her husband, and gave herself up to the joy of his return. 

With the happy meeting between him and his old father, 
and the pacifying of the parents of the slain suitors, the 
Odyssey leaves Ulysses to enjoy his repose, though not 
without hints that further toils and voyages were required 
of him before he returned to enjoy a peaceful old age. 

Here, then, we see the three men who were looked on 
by Greece and Rome as among their chiefest worthies. 
They are men of graceful courtesy, dauntless valour, in- 
tense constancy even in the most hopeless cause, strong 
affections to friend, wife, and son, and, above all, to 
country ; and to their country's cause ready to sacrifice 
their lives, themselves, their all, with unflinching devotion. 
They all have a strong sense of honour of a certain kind, 
but that honour does not include either truth, pity to a 
fallen foe, or unwillingness to strike the defenceless : and 
yet they are very noble creatures, the noblest the unas- 
sisted fancy of man could frame. It is certainly curious 
that among the three, it should have been the vanquished 
one whom the Christians of the Middle Ages chose as 
their worthy, as if they loved suffering better than suc- 
cess ; but this was partly owing to the later and ruder 
manner in which Achilles and Ulysses were painted in 
Latin authors, where the one lost all his grace and was 
left merely ferocious, and the other had no attribute 
remaining but his cunning. 

After all, in the next Heroes we shall treat of, we shall 
find that the Image of God, even in the heathen man, is 
more perfect than the fancy of man. The true and living 
Aristides, Epaminondas, and Scipio, are finer characters 
than the imaginary Achilles, Ulysses, and Hector, whom 
they admired. 



7o THE BOOK OF 



ARISTIDES. 

Circa B.C. 505 — 460. 

We have to pass on many years to find our next Worthy. 
In truth, for five hundred years after the reign of David 
we have little certainty about the name or character of 
any one except in the land of Israel and Judah. 

At last, however, those nations which sung and 
loved "the tale of Troy divine," begin to come into the 
bright light of history, or rather they light up a candle for 
themselves that has shone to our own times. 

When the Greeks attacked, or supposed themselves to 
have attacked Troy, it was as a brotherhood of little states, 
each of which was marked off from the rest by the moun- 
tains and seas that cut up all the Grecian lands into little 
isles and peninsulas, and render them most lovely and 
beautiful. The men who dwelt there could not help being 
mountaineers and sailors all in one, and had besides a 
most earnest and deep love for their country — first of all 
for their own tiny native state, and next to that for the 
entire land of Greece, or Hellas, as they themselves 
called it. 

All nations sprung from that great stock which peopled 
Europe seem to have had among them three orders of 
men — a Kingly stock, whence the leaders in battle were 
taken, and who were thought to descend from some god ; 
an order of Nobles, who formed his chief councillors and 
were leaders in his absence ; and an order of Freemen, 
without whose consent no great law could be passed, no 



WORTHIES. y i 

great criminal punished, no war or peace could be made : 
and beneath all these were the slaves, who were either 
captives taken in war, remains of conquered nations, or 
persons caught and sold by the men-stealing Phoenicians. 

All these we find among the Greeks before Troy, but in 
the subsequent times matters had changed among the 
little states. Most of them had lost their kings, and 
affairs were managed by the other two orders — the nobles 
and the freemen. In some states one of these bodies 
would have more power ; in some, others ; and there were 
different ways of choosing who should be the chief mana- 
gers of public affairs, but in general they were taken from 
among the nobles by the choice of the nobles and freemen. 
No Greek ever forgot that he belonged, not only to his 
own state, but to the whole of Greece ; and there were 
meetings at certain times at the great temple of Apollo, at 
Delphi, which belonged to all the Greeks together, when 
the affairs of the whole country were considered ; and 
again, there were certain grand meetings for trials of 
strength and skill in arms, in races, in music or poetry ? 
when every state sent its own champion, and rejoiced in 
his victory as its own. Great and exquisite skill had been 
attained by the Greeks in these arts, and likewise in those 
of sculpture, painting, and building. There never was a 
people who cared so much for beauty, and in those times 
it was in a manly way, taking it as a part of perfection, 
and a token of strength and self-mastery in man, and a 
likeness to the gods, to whom their most choice and beau- 
tiful works were dedicated. Heathens as the Greeks were, 
and bewildered by the strange stories of their gods, the 
best men among them were always straining to think out 
for themselves the truth about the Maker and Governor of 
all, and their guesses formed what was called philosophy. 

Foremost of all the cities both in power of thought and 
love of beauty was Athens, that which deemed itself to 



72 THE BOOK OF 

belong to Pallas Athene, goddess of sacred wisdom. It 
stood a little way inland, on the side of two very steep 
hills, and the country round was small and rugged, with a 
rocky sea-coast, and a sea-port called the Piraeus, where 
the Athenians kept their ships. Beautiful temples with 
rows of pillars supporting pediments richly carved, on 
which stood statues of the gods, were beginning to adorn 
it, and on the top of the hill was the Acropolis, or citadel, 
with a sacred olive in its enclosure, said to have sprung 
up at the bidding of Pallas Athene herself. 

The Athenians had long ago parted with their kings, 
and had a constitution in which the freemen or people had 
much power ; but the chief rule was given to nine chief 
magistrates, called archons, who were freshly chosen every 
year by the people from among those who had worked up 
through other offices. 

* It was in the days when Athens was growing to her 
greatness that one of the best citizens was born — one of 
those men who chiefly contributed to cause his city to be 
trusted and respected. 

This was Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, a freeman 
of good family, though poor. We do not know anything 
about his early days, but all sons of Athenian gentlemen 
were left to their parents till they were sixteen, learning in 
the meantime to read, write, make speeches gracefully, 
and to know by heart the poems of Homer, with no doubt 
more or less of others, as also something of philosophy. 
At sixteen, the laws obliged every youth to come under the 
training of masters, who taught him the perfect use of his 
own limbs, and of all the weapons of the Greeks — the 
sword, the spear, the bow and helmet ; subjecting him to 
hard discipline to conduce to his readiness, lightness, and 
swiftness. 

At eighteen, he had to take the military oath, never to 
disgrace his arms nor desert his comrade ; to fight to the 



WORTHIES. 73 

death for Attica, her hearths and altars ; to leave his 
country in better, not in worse plight than he found it ; to 
respect the magistrates, and the laws and religion of his 
forefathers. He was then sent forth to form part of the 
garrison of the frontier fortresses, and be there trained in 
camp discipline ; and though in times of peace this service 
lasted only two years, he was liable till he was sixty years 
old to be called out to fight when there was a war. At 
twenty, he came to the rights of a full-grown citizen ; he 
might speak and vote in public assemblies, and might be 
elected to different magistracies as he attained the required 
age for them. The highest dignity was that of the 
archons, or judges, of whom there were nine, with one 
chief among them, and when after one year the archons 
went out of office, they were admitted to form part of the 
great council of state. 

How Aristides climbed up through the successive dig- 
nities we do not know ; but the first time we find him in 
person, we must think of him as standing on Areopagus, 
or Mars Hill, the great hill of justice at Athens, so called 
because the god Ares, or Mars, was said to have been there 
tried for his crimes. Aristides there is standing under 
a portico of pillars of rich golden-coloured stone, dressed 
in the Ionic tunic, a linen garment girt round the waist, 
and showing freely the bare and shapely limbs of the 
Greek figure, and he is pleading his cause before the 
judges against an enemy who has done him some grievous 
wrong. So clear is his case, so perfect is the dependance 
on his uprightness, that the judges are about to pronounce 
sentence in his favour at once ; but on this Aristides 
holds out his hand and speaks up for his adversary, 
claiming and gaining for him the right of a free citizen to 
be heard in his own cause. 

See Aristides again, still in his plain tunic, but with the 
myrtle wreath on his head that marks him as an archon, 



74 THE BOOK OF 

and himself seated in judgment. Two Athenians stand 
before him, and one of them in pleading against the 
other begins with his insinuating Greek persuasiveness 
to declare that Aristides himself has suffered many a 
wrong from the man before him. The archon gravely 
checks him, " Relate rather, good friend, what wrong he 
hath done to thee. For it is thy cause, not mine own, 
of which I sit as judge." 

If such things as these seem plain enough to us now, let 
us remember that they were strange to the slippery Greek 
character, and that perhaps our sense of honour and fair 
play has been helped on by this uprightness of Aristides and 
the honour done thereto by those who recorded it. The 
citizens called him Aristides the Just, and held him in 
great honour ; but they feared his grave, stern, upright 
ways, and did not love him as they did those men who 
were more supple and easy to deal with. But there was a 
trial coming on Athens and all Greece that made it 
needful indeed to have men to serve their country who 
could thoroughly be trusted to love the right better than 
themselves. 

There was always in the East some great conquering 
power which strove to swallow up all the nations round. 
At first it was Assyria, and afterwards it was Persia. 
Brave warrioi s, of the same great stock as the Greeks and 
as ourselves, had the mountaineers of Iran (or Persia) once 
been. They had come fresh and vigorous out of their 
mountains, and the great luxurious empire of Assyria had 
been given into their hands ; and though the wealth and 
ease they found there was fast changing their character 
and weakening their strength, it had not lessened their 
thirst for conquest. They had mastered all the great pen- 
insula of Asia Minor, with many a city filled with Greek 
colonists upon its coast, and " the great king," as the 
Persian monarch was called in Greece, was felt to be a 



WORTHIES. 



75 



very dangerous neighbour. Runaways, who had been 
driven out of their own cities, used to take refuge at the 
Persian court, where their skill and ability recommended 
them, and by some of these wretches, as it was believed, 
the great king, Darius Hystaspes, was advised to conquer 
Greece, and to begin with Athens, the very prime of all 
Greek states. 

He began to collect his army from " all people, nations, 
and languages," as his proclamations called his many 
subjects, and in the meantime sent heralds to all the 
Greek cities, calling on them to send him earth and water 
in token of their submission. The Athenians were at this 
time very much swayed by a very brave and able warrior 
of high birth, who had been a little king, named Miltiades, 
whom, though they knew him to be greedy of gain, they 
preferred to Aristides, probably because he was not so 
unlike themselves. Miltiades advised them to put the 
Persian envoys to death for being so bold as thus to insult 
them, and the Athenians had the cruelty and injustice to 
follow this evil counsel, although it was always the rule, as 
they well knew through Homer's poems, that heralds and 
messengers were never to be treated with violence. 

This usage, of course, made Darius and his Persians 
doubly bitter against Athens above all the other states, 
except Sparta, where the same act had been committed ; 
and, in the year B.C. 490, an immense army was collected 
by Darius of all the most warlike nations of the East, and 
placed under the command of the Median general, Datis, 
and of the king's own nephew, Artaphernes. On the 
coast of Cilicia, in Asia Minor, there was waiting for 
them a fleet of six hundred ships, each with three banks 
of rowers, besides other vessels to carry their horses ; and 
with these they proceeded to cross the Hellespont, bearing 
down direct upon Attica, only pausing to lay waste the 
islands that lay full in their way. 



76 THE BOOK OF 

Some fugitives who escaped from Eretria bore the 
news to Athens that the dreadful host was coming. It 
was a host, not only far out-numbering the Athenians, 
but which had never yet been defeated. Famine had, 
indeed, checked the Persian career on the banks of the 
Danube, but in no conquering expedition had they yet 
been defeated by force of arms ; and they were guided by 
Hippias, a traitor Athenian, who knew all the weak places 
in his own state. The brave Athenians, however, were 
resolved not to give themselves and their country up 
without an effort. Every man took up arms, and each of 
the ten tribes of Athens elected its own general. One of 
these was Aristides, another was Miltiades, and each had 
the right of commanding for one day. A messenger was 
sent off to ask the aid of the Spartans, and actually walked 
the whole hundred and fifty miles from Athens to Sparta 
in forty-eight hours ; but his speed was to no purpose, 
for the Spartans had a superstition which forbade them to 
begin an undertaking till the moon was full, and as this 
would not be for five days, Athens might be in ruins 
before they had their armour on. The messenger has- 
tened back with the unwelcome reply ; but by the time he 
reached home the great Persian fleet was already in 
Marathon Bay, which was only separated from Athens 
itself by twenty-two miles of mountain road, over the 
ridge of Mount Pentelicus. Under the shelter of a pro- 
jecting cape the ships were safely landing the army upon 
a broad smooth beach, six miles long and between one 
and two miles wide before the ground began to slope 
upwards, for some distance gently, but as it rose higher, 
the rocks became steep and rugged Hippias had no 
doubt directed the Persians to this spot, because it was 
the only one in Attica where they could make much use 
of their horses. 

There was a Council held among the ten generals, some 



WORTHIES. 77 

of them wanted to wait for the Spartans, and only defend 
the city. The only one among them who had fought 
both against and for the Persians was Miltiades, and he 
strongly advised that they should be attacked at once on 
the shore at Marathon. Aristides sided with him, and 
this bold measure was decided on ; and at the same time 
Aristides, more anxious for the welfare of his country 
than for glory for himself, and seeing that the army could 
not be properly led while the commander was continually 
changed, gave up his own day to Miltiades, and this good 
example was followed by the other eight generals ; but 
Miltiades was still too cautious to begin the battle until 
the day of his own turn, lest any general should repent of 
having resigned, and dispute his commands. 

The little army had only ten thousand of the fully- 
armed men, all on foot, and wearing for protection brass 
helmets with horsehair -crests, breastplates with a long 
fringe of strips of leather hanging from their lower edge, 
greaves of brass on their legs, and a round leathern shield 
guarded with brass or gold on their left arm. Each car- 
ried a heavy spear and a sword, and their slaves, more 
lightly armed, would supply them with fresh spears. At 
Marathon they met a thousand warriors sent forth to 
their assistance by the brave and grateful little city of 
Plataea, which deserved eternal honour for its prompt- 
ness and patriotism. Over the mountains then they 
marched, and beheld, spread out before them the blue 
waters of the bay, filled with the curve-beaked, many- 
oared galleys of Ionia and Tyre, and the broad white 
beach bespread with the tents of the Eastern army. 

Miltiades chose his quarters in a wood sacred to the 
god Hercules ; and causing his men to protect their front 
with trunks of trees against any attack from the Persian 
horse, he made his observations on the mighty multitude, 
certainly not less than a hundred thousand men, from 



78 THE BOOK OF 

whom, with a tenth of their number, he had undertaken 
to save his country ! In the middle lay the Persians, 
well known to him by their light swift horses, their 
brightly-coloured scarlet, green, carnation, or blue tunics 
and loose trowsers, their pointed caps with muslin tur- 
bans rolled round them, their breastplates of metal scales, 
silvered or gilt ; their wicker shields, their bows and 
arrows, and short spears and swords ; and with them 
were the Sacas, fierce mountaineers, much resembling 
them, but equipped with hatchets that could give terrible 
wounds. There was a motley crowd besides, Arabs with 
beautiful horses, heavy bournouses, and long lances ; 
Indians in white cotton vests over their dark limbs ; Jews 
with the hawberk of David, the spear of Joshua, or the 
bow of Jonathan : but Miltiades cared little for the allies ; 
the Persians who were fighting in their own cause were 
the only enemies that he felt anxious about. However, 
his object was to spread out his line so as to be equal in 
length to the Persian, and on this account he left the 
centre of his army to consist of but few ranks of men, 
among whom was Aristides and his tribe, while he put all 
whom he could spare to strengthen the weight, as it were, 
of his wings, i.e. sides. Thus he drew up in order of 
battle where the slope of the hill became smooth and 
clear, about a mile from the enemy below him. He gave 
the word to charge at a run. It was the first time that 
the Greeks had ever thus made their onset ; but down the 
slope they rushed, levelling their spears, and all with one 
voice singing the war-song, or paean, that cheered their 
hearts and measured their tread. 

Never had the Persians seen or heard the like. That 
so scanty a number of men on foot should of their own 
free will come hurling themselves on their own great force 
would have seemed to them madness, but for that fearless 
front, that disciplined step, that joyous song which made 



WORTHIES. 79 

them seem like so many gods. They came so fast that 
there was no time for the archers to shoot nor the horse- 
men to charge ; but they were themselves out of breath 
and out of order when they reached the Persians, and the 
centre where Aristides was could not stand the shock, 
wavered, and, though fighting hard, was driven part of the 
way up the hill by the Persians and Sacae. No doubt 
Miltiades had known that this must happen. He knew 
that the allies would not resist the heavier wings for a 
moment, and would scatter like leaves before the blast, 
and he had therefore warned the men in these divisions 
by no means to pursue and break their ranks, but to be 
ready at once to close in on either hand on the Persians, 
who were already fighting with Aristides and the centre. 
It was an admirable device, and it perfectly succeeded. 
Down went white turban and glittering scaly breastplate, 
and wildly and desperately did the Persians turn and 
struggle to reach their ships as the only place of safety. 
Over the shore, into the bordering salt-marsh they rushed, 
into the sea — the Athenians hurrying after them and cut- 
ting them down, or even crowding after them into the 
ships. The hardest fighting of all was round the ships. 
Seven were dragged ashore and captured by the Athen- 
ians, and another was held so fast by the brother of the 
poet yEschylus after it was afloat, that the Persians only- 
freed themselves by cutting off his hand with an axe. 

Before evening the Bay of Marathon was clear. Every 
foe who had crowded it in the morning was either lying 
dead, or dying, on the plain, stifled in the marshes, drowned 
in the sea, a slave in the victor's hands, or else sailing 
away in the ships. But there was no rest yet. On the 
heights far above was seen gleaming in the setting sun 
something like a star, which the sharp eyes of the Athen- 
ians discovered to be a shield. They knew there were 
traitors in the land, and they suspected that this signal 



80 THE BOOK OF 

had been raised to show the Persians that Athens was 
left unguarded by all the fighting men, and that a sudden 
descent on her would retrieve the lost battle. 

The Athenian men had fought all day for their homes 
and children. They were ready to hasten back ; and back 
over the mountain path, all the twenty-two miles, they 
marched again .on the very evening of the battle. Only a 
guard was left over the huge spoil of the Persian camp, 
and that guard was committed to Aristides, as the most 
trustworthy man in all the camp, who was quite certain 
not to abuse his charge. 

The precaution of Miltiades was not thrown away. The 
enemy really sailed round, and landed a few men to re- 
connoitre ; but they met with no encouragement, and 
learning that the undaunted men who had already beaten 
them were ready to fight them again, they took to their 
ships and sailed back to Cilicia, leaving Athens to her 
glory. The Spartans marched up just too late ; they came 
to see the field of battle, expressed great honour for the 
Athenians and regret for themselves, and returned to 
their homes. 6,400 Persians had been killed and only 
192 Athenians. 

Miltiades was for the time reckoned the first of the 
Athenians, but in an expedition that he soon after made 
to recover an island from the Persians, he failed, and was 
hurt in the thigh. An accusation was brought against 
him that he had misused the public money : and he was 
sentenced to pay a heavy fine and thrown into prison, 
where he died of his wound. Men, who felt want of in- 
tegrity so great a crime as thus to treat their greatest 
captain, would, it might have seemed, be likely to honour 
above all men him whom they called " the Just ;" but Aris- 
tides was too grave and unbending to be a favourite, and 
he had an enemy, a plausible, ambitious citizen named 
Themistocles, who found so upright a man a hindrance to 



WORTHIES, 8 1 

his schemes. The Athenians were so much afraid of any- 
one citizen exalting himself over the rest, that they had a 
law that, if most of them agreed in sentencing any man to 
leave the city, he should be forced to go away for a term 
of years — generally ten. The votes were given by writing 
a name on a small tile, or an oyster-shell ; these were cast 
into urns, and counted by the archons, who were forced 
to pronounce the person " ostracised/' or banished, if they 
found that 8,000 had declared against him. 

Seven years after the battle of Marathon, B.C. 483, 
Themistocles caused Aristides' name to be proposed for 
ostracism, and he had contrived so to poison men's 
minds, by whispers that the stern honesty of his rival was 
all pretence, that shells were not wanting to his con- 
demnation. Aristides met one of the rough freemen of 
Attica who lived in the country, and was stopped by him 
and entreated to inscribe his shell, since he could not 
write. 

" Whose name shall I write ? " 

" Whose but Aristides' ?" said the countryman. 

" Wherefore ? " was the next question. " What has this 
Aristides done to deserve to be banished?" 

" What he has done," said the farmer, " I cannot tell ; I 
only know that I am weary of always hearing him called 
the Just." 

Well pleased to find that this was his worst crime, 
Aristides wrote his own name down, and passed on with- 
out making himself known, and the shell went to make 
one of those that unjustly sentenced the best of the citi- 
zens to leave Attica within ten days. As Aristides took 
his last look on the Acropolis in its golden light, with the 
grey leaves of the sacred olive of Athene peeping over 
the walls, he raised his hands and prayed to the gods 
that his beloved city might never have cause to regret 
Aristides. 

G 



82 THE BOOK OF 

Sore and sad it was to him to be deprived of the power 
of helping his country, for the great cloud from the East 
was gathering up for another tempest. Darius had been 
three years dead, but his son Xerxes had ever since been 
gathering together a multitude of armies with which to 
overwhelm the little insolent states who had dared to defy 
and defeat the Great King. All his doings were like those 
of giants or of gods ; he carried with him a crowd of 
tributary kings and princes ; he bridged the Hellespont 
for the passage of his army ; and began to sever Mount 
Athos from the mainland to make a way for his fleet, and 
he boasted as though all power on earth were given to 
him. 

The Greeks were resolved to do their utmost, but it was 
with failing hearts. They might singly be better warriors 
than the Persians, but though it be easy to kill a dozen 
locusts, who can resist a swarm ? However, a council of 
deputies from all the states met at the isthmus of Corinth, 
and took measures for defence. Aristides was all this 
time in the island of ^Egma, which lies at the entrance of 
the Saronic gulf that runs up to the isthmus of Corinth, 
between Attica and the Peloponnesus. As a banished 
man, he had no place in the Greek ranks ; but he used all 
the weight which having fought at Marathon could give 
him to encourage all who came in his way to be brave 
and stedfast. 

The tidings were worse and worse. Xerxes was over 
the Hellespont : the Pass of Tempe, which Themistocles 
with the Athenian troops was sent to guard, was found 
untenable, and they had retreated. Thermopylae was 
strewn with the corpses of the glorious Leonidas and his 
three hundred, and there was nothing between the enemy 
and the choicest provinces of Greece. The Peloponnesus, 
with its wild rocky coasts, and the narrow neck that joined 
it to the mainland, might yet be saved, and the council 



WORTHIES. 83 

resolved to build a wall across the isthmus, and fight hard 
in defence of that, while the fleet, collected from all the 
states, should try to prevent a landing from the multitu- 
dinous ships gathered by Xerxes from Tyre, Zidon, Asia 
Minor, and Egypt. Attica was outside the wall. What 
was to become of her and her children ? 

The fleet had all gathered in the Saronic gulf, near the 
isthmus, and round the island of Salamis, which lay 
further in than that of ^Egina ; and Aristides might see 
each vessel making for the Piraeus, the port of Attica, and 
returning again heavily laden with women, children, and 
household stores. Some came to ^Egina, some sailed for 
Traezene, but most only went as far as Salamis, and then 
returned for a fresh freight. If Athens could not be saved, 
at least the enemy should find nothing there but rocks and 
empty houses on which to wreak his fury. Only a few 
persons refused to quit the Acropolis, and these fell a prey 
to the enemy. Flames and smoke rising far above the 
Athenian hills made only too plain to the sad watchers in 
Salamis and ^gina the fate of the lovely city of their pride. 

All the men were on board the ships ; of which Athens 
possessed two hundred, while all the other states put 
together made up only a hundred and sixty-six. These 
vessels were all drawn up in that bay of the isle of Salamis 
which is turned towards Attica, but down along the coast 
were coming on the thousand ships of Persia, and six days 
after the burning of Athens they could be seen from 
^Egina, spreading their purple sails, and plying their 
many oars on the Archipelago, while Xerxes reviewed 
them from his throne on Mount Citheron. And at the 
same time reports reached Aristides that the captains at 
Salamis were so much alarmed at the notion of being 
caught and shut up within the Saronic gulf, that they 
wanted to sail away while the sea was still open. But on 
the evening after the review, they were still within their 

G 2 



84 THE BOOK OF 

bay, and the Persian fleet, rowing steadily and surely, 
came, with all the great Phoenician ships, not only into the 
gulf, but into the very strait itself ; and there they lay, 
moored in a double line along the coast of Attica, shut- 
ting the little Grecian fleet into its narrow bay, and as 
sure of it, apparently, as a beast of prey of the victim 
within its hole. 

Aristides could bear inaction no longer. He must 
warn his fellow-citizens and die with them. At nightfall 
he took boat, and through the very midst of the enemy's 
ships he cautiously made his way, and safely gained the 
Greek fleet. The captains were still in council, he was 
told, disputing whether to sail away or give battle. He 
found his way to the place where the council was sitting, 
and sent in word that a stranger desired to speak with 
Themistocles. The Athenian captain came forth. 

" Themistocles," said Aristides, " we are still rivals ; 
but let our strife be which can best serve our country. I 
am come to tell you that it is waste of words to debate 
whether to fly from this place. We are surrounded. 
Leave it we cannot, save by cutting our way through the 
enemy." 

Themistocles took the frank hand held out to him, and 
said, " I accept your rivalry, and will not be out-done by 
you ; " and then he exultingly confided to Aristides that 
this was the very news he wished for. He had no fears 
but that the Greeks would fight when forced to do so, and 
he saw the fatal error of losing all their advantages in the 
land-locked bay, with all its currents of wind, so puzzling 
to strangers ; but he had entreated and argued in vain — he 
had even threatened to sail off with his two hundred 
ships and found a new Athens in Italy ; and at last, finding 
himself only able to delay and lengthen out the dispute, 
he had feigned himself a traitor to the Greek cause, and 
had sent a message by a slave to Xerxes that the fleet was 



WORTHIES. 85 

in a trap, and the leaders all in a state of dissension, and 
that now was the time to fall upon them. He declared 
that Aristides must take his own tidings to the council, 
for that if he related them they would be supposed to be 
an invention of his own. He had learnt the use of a 
man whose word was beyond a doubt. And thus, when 
Aristides entered among the citizens, all exiles as much as 
himself, his ostracism was at an end. 

All doubt about the battle was over : the Greeks had 
only each man to repair to his ship and make it ready 
for action : and ere they dispersed to do this, Themistocles 
is said to have made them a speech reminding them of all 
that was noble and beautiful in the life of a free Greek 
compared with that of a Persian slave. Morning saw all 
the Greek galleys manned, the rowers at their oars, 
the warriors on their decks, and Xerxes repaired to 
his mountain throne to overlook the fight, with a scribe 
by his side to note down the conduct of the fleet ot 
each ally. 

At first the Greek fleet remained motionless. The truth 
was, that Themistocles was waiting till a breeze should 
spring up, which the Athenians knew was sure to come 
from the hills at a certain time of the day, and which 
would much disturb the motions of the great Phoenician 
vessels. And even when the Persian armament, supposing 
him afraid to come out, began to bear down on the line of 
Greeks, the vessels were backed, some say from fear, others 
from Themistocles' desire to draw his enemies within the 
horns of the bay, where their whole force could not be 
used. When this was done a single ship darted forward, 
and struck a Persian galley, and then, each man raising 
the mighty battle-song, the whole Greek line was impelled 
forward to dash against the hostile ships. 

The breeze was setting in, and moreover the Persians 
had been at work all night, taking up their stations. They 



S6 THE BOOK OF 

fought bravely, but they were too close together to man- 
oeuvre properly : the oars of different vessels got entangled 
together and broken, their foremost ships were run down 
as the Greeks clashed against them, and a terror fell upon 
them. The different nations of the fleet did not care for 
one another ; but in their haste their ships went rushing 
upon each other, heedless whom they sank so that they 
might escape themselves. Two hundred Persian ships 
were thus destroyed, and the whole armament routed, 
scattered and confused, while the Greeks rode proudly 
masters of the Saronic gulf, with the loss of only forty 
vessels. 

Aristides, having no ship, was not in the sea-fight. A 
body of choice Persian troops had been landed on the 
little island of Psyltaleia, and so soon as the battle began 
to show itself to incline to the Greek cause, he collected 
some soldiers and some boats, and made for the island. 
The Persians were driven into a corner, and after a brave 
defence were all killed, except three nephews of Xerxes, 
whom Aristides sent captives to Themistocles. The belief 
that human sacrifices might avail on great occasions was 
not extinct among the Greeks, and at the bidding of a 
soothsayer the unhappy youths were offered up to the 
god Bacchus. 

The Greeks were yet far from safe. The Persian fleet 
still far outnumbered their own, and Xerxes still looked 
down on them from the hills with his monstrous land 
army, and even threatened to build a causeway across the 
strait, and come to hunt them out of Salamis ; but he 
was full of alarm and rage, and he let his anger fall on 
the Phoenicians, whom he threatened and punished so 
furiously that all the crews deserted in the night, and took 
their ships home to their own cities. Without them the 
fleet could do nothing. Themistocles had taken Aristides 
into his counsel so completely that he proposed to him 



WORTHIES. 87 

to sail at once to the Hellespont, and there break down 
the bridge so as to cut Xerxes off from his own country ; 
but Aristides represented the extreme danger of driving 
so dangerous an enemy to stand at bay, and the design 
was given up. Only the wily Themistocles contrived to 
give a hint of it to the Persian king, who was so terrified 
at the possibility, that he instantly marched off north- 
ward, and hurried home, to secure his own person, 
leaving however his army, under his General Mardonius, 
in Thessaly. 

Aristides then returned with his fellow-citizens to try to 
build up their burnt houses and to sow their land, and all 
the winter 'they remained at peace, though very poor and 
suffering ; but with early spring came Alexander, king of 
Macedon, the northern part of Greece, which the Persians 
had subdued. He came with a message from the Grea.t 
King, proposing to rebuild the city, make the Athenians 
lords of all Greece, and offer no damage to their territory 
if they would engage to remain quiet during the coming 
campaign. The Spartans were so alarmed lest the Athe- 
nians should accept this proposal, that they sent off another 
embassy, offering a refuge to all the old people, women, 
and children in Lacedaemonia, and to feed them there. 
The answer was prompted by the high mind of Aristides. 
The Athenians said that they could forgive the Persians 
for fancying that everything could be bought with money, 
but that they were hurt that the Spartans could fancy that 
because they were in poverty now, they could so forget 
their former valour as only to serve their country for hire 
of bread ! The treasure of the whole world, they said, 
was nothing to them in comparison with the freedom of 
Greece ! 

And when the Persians again marched into Attica, 
these brave men again placed their families in their 
ships and withdrew to Salamis; but the Spartans, though 



88 THE BOOK OF 

tardily, came to their help, and Mardonius retreated, 
thinking it better to fight in the plains of Thessaly than 
the mountains of Attica. The Greeks were mustering in 
full force for a decisive battle, to drive away their enemies, 
and Aristides was the general chosen by the Athenians to 
command the 8,000 men they sent to join the main army 
which was led by Pausanias, one of the kings of Sparta. 
It must have well pleased the Athenians that the place 
where the Persians awaited the battle was near the gallant 
little town of Plataea, which had so readily come to their 
help in their extremity. But just before the fight, the 
Athenians had a sharp dispute with the Tegeans, as to 
who had a right to the station of honour. The most 
honourable of all was held by the Spartans, but the 
second post was claimed by both Athens and Tegea, till 
Aristides, aware that the chief evil was dissension, came 
forward saying, " The time befits not for contention. 
The place neither takes away nor adds to honour. What- 
ever place the Spartans may assign to us, we will strive 
not to disgrace our former doings, for we are come not to 
differ with our friends, but to fight with our enemies ; not 
to praise our forefathers, but to show ourselves valiant 
men ; and it is this battle that must show what is to be 
thought of each city, captain, or soldier ! " 

When we find how many battles have been lost by 
disputes as to the place of honour, we see that there was 
no small wisdom and forbearance in Aristides when he 
thus yielded the coveted post. The Spartan king, how- 
ever, decided in favour of the Athenians, knowing them 
to be the only Greeks who had beaten the Persians often 
enough to be trusted against them. At night a horseman 
rode up to the camp of the Athenians, and desired to 
speak with Aristides. He made himself known as Alex- 
ander of Macedon, and brought tidings that the Persians 
were resolved to fall on the Greek camp early the next 



WORTHIES. 89 

morning. It was treason indeed to his Persian lords to 
betray these counsels ; but he was so much a Greek in 
heart, and in such unwilling servitude, that he could not 
bear to leave his countrymen unwarned. He then rode 
back to the Persian camp, while Aristides sent notice to 
Pausanias. 

The battle did not after all take place the next day, for 
there were various marchings and counter-marchings, 
chiefly because Pausanias wished the Athenians to be 
opposed to the native Persians, and Mardonius on the 
other hand wished the Persians to attack the Spartans, 
knowing that a troop of that people had at least been 
slain at Thermopylae. It ended at last in the whole 
brunt of the battle being between the Spartans and 
Persians, and between the Athenians and the Thebans, 
a Greek nation, who, like the Macedonians, had been 
forced into fighting in the Persian cause. 

No other divisions of either army fought heartily, and 
Sparta and Athens both were completely successful, 
though with heavy loss, but far less than they inflicted 
on the enemy. Mardonius was killed, and his troops 
fled in all haste, making the best of their way round the 
northern countries towards the Hellespont. Thus the 
battle of Plataea completed the great work of rescuing 
Greece from becoming the slave of Persia. But though 
Pausanias held the foremost place of command, it may be 
doubted whether that great battle would ever have been 
won had the Athenians not been led by a man so patient, 
forbearing, and unselfish as their Aristides. 

After this, there was a most joyous thanksgiving, and 
dedication of the choicest of the spoil to the gods, while 
the united fleet proceeded to deliver the Greek islets from 
the Persian power. It is said that Themistocles came to 
Aristides, and told him that he had a plan for making 
Athens the greatest of all Greek cities. It was, that now 



9 o THE BOOK OF 

all the fleets were together, to set fire to all the ships of 
the other cities, so that no state save Athens would have 
any power at sea. Should it be proposed to the Athenian 
council ? On this Aristides went back to the council, and 
told them that Themistocles had a scheme which would 
be much for their advantage, but that nothing could be 
more dishonourable. And so much did they trust to him 
that they never even asked what it was. 

Indeed, all the Greeks were trusting him more than 
any one else. Pansanias had been uplifted by vanity since 
his victory, and was harsh and over-bearing, and the 
allies all preferred placing themselves under Aristides. 
But in truth the war was nearly over, and soon the 
armies dispersed, and the Athenians returned to the 
rebuilding of their city. Here Aristides and Themistocles 
worked heartily together, and the latter, who was no 
doubt the abler man of the two, did much for the grand 
fortification of the Piraeus, the harbour of Athens. How- 
ever, Themistocles was a restless, ambitious man, always 
striving to get wealth and power ; he was suspected of a 
correspondence with the Persians, and was ostracised by 
Athens, then exiled as a traitor by all the Greeks, without 
however, one effort against him from Aristides. 

He then went to the Court of Xerxes, who made much 
of him, and gave him palaces, slaves, and riches, so that 
he one day cried out, as he looked at the glittering feast 
before him, " How much we should have lost, my children, 
if we had not been ruined." Yet at heart he must have 
felt his shame : and who would not rather have been 
Aristides walking about Athens, the most respected man 
there, though in a threadbare cloak ? All the Persian 
spoil had been in his hands, but he gloried in being as 
poor as when he began life. 

He is believed to have died at sea, on a voyage in the 
service of his country. He was so poor that the expenses 



WORTHIES. 



9i 



of his obsequies were paid by the state ; and, for the sake 
of his honoured name, his two daughters each received a 
marriage portion from the treasury. 

What a contrast ! Themistocles loaded with riches as a 
disgraced exile, despised by all honourable men ; Aristides 
poor, and living a hard life, but at peace with himself, and 
honoured by all men for his lofty integrity and brave 
patience. 



92 



THE BOOK OF 



NEHEMIAK 

B.C. 456—424. 

The Persians had retreated, baffled, from the shores of 
Greece to their own mighty empire ; and it is among their 
subject nations — nay, among their palace slaves — that we 
must seek our next worthy, a man who, though bred up 
a captive and a servant, showed no less freedom of heart, 
courage, and love of country, than did the Just Aris- 
tides. 

Strange abodes were those palaces to men of high heart 
and pure life. Once when the Persians had been a hardy 
tribe living apart on the hills of Fars, the province whence 
they take their name, they had shown themselves not 
unlike the gallant nations of the same Aryan stock, in 
honour, justice, and courage, so that it was said of them 
that the education they gave their children was that they 
taught them to ride, to draw the bow, and speak the truth. 
Nor had their faith swerved so far from the old traditions 
of the patriarchs as that of the Greeks. They had kept 
clear of the worship of images, and their only idols were 
the sun and fire, which they adored as emblems of the 
great good god, Ormuzd ; but their great error was that 
they supposed Ahriman, or the Evil spirit, to be a being 
of power equal that of the Good spirit, and to require to 
be propitiated. Among them were a sect called Magi, 
who made it their especial business to keep the religion of 
the people as spiritual as possible, instead of letting it fall 



WORTHIES. 93 

into common idolatry. These Magi seem chiefly to have 
belonged to the Medes, a nation who inhabited the more 
fertile country on the banks of the Tigris, and who were 
excellent horsemen, and more civilized than the Persians. 
The two nations became joined together under the great 
Persian Khoosroo (or Cyrus), and in their fresh strength 
assaulted the great Babylonian empire, overthrew it, and 
mastered the subject races. 

Then came the grandeur of the Persian empire. Reign- 
ing over countless provinces, the Great King portioned 
them out to his nobility, and the satrap, or governor, of 
each was as a king himself ; only he had yearly to collect 
and pay into the treasury a proportion of the produce of 
the country — metals, corn, wine, &c. — which was either 
stored in great treasure cities, or appropriated to some 
branch of the palace expenses. One district furnished 
the queen's belts ; another her bracelets ; another was 
set apart for the maintenance of a certain faithful camel 
that had carried King Darius on the dangerous retreat 
from Scythia. The cities and palaces raised by the Per- 
sians were most magnificent ; splendid ranks of columns, 
sculptures like the strange forms of Assyrian emblems, 
flights of steps and marble pavements of many various 
colours, still remain to attest the past grandeur of Perse- 
polis, Ecbatana, Susa, and their other royal homes ; and 
sometimes on the brick walls, sometimes on the sides 
of precipices, are inscriptions in wedge-shaped characters, 
setting forth the glories of their kings and the number of 
nations they had conquered. 

Heirs to the overgrown, effeminate luxury of the As- 
syrian monarchs, the Persian kings could not fail to have 
their minds puffed up and their habits perverted. They 
were treated, from the time their temples were bound with 
the royal diadem — a sort of scarf set up over the fore- 
head — as gods rather than men. Only seven nobles of 



94 THE BOOK OF 

the highest rank could obtain free admission to their 
presence ; their decrees were irrevocable, their word 
gave death without trial, and their summons could call 
together millions on millions to march at their com- 
mand. Naturally gay and lively, fond of poetry and 
music, of story and of song, the kings could command 
a ceaseless round of banquets, and of slaves able to amuse 
them in every possible manner ; the Eastern story-teller 
would gravely narrate the stories that in nursery tale or 
Arabian night have charmed all the Aryan race ever since ; 
the captive or fugitive Greek would sing the sweet lyrics 
of his home, or rehearse the tale of Troy ; and some Jews 
would even sing to David's harp the song of Zion in a 
strange land ; for the Jews loved their Persian masters. 
To the great Cyrus they owed permission to return and 
rebuild their own city, which Nebuchadnezzar had ruined, 
and the trustworthiness of their nation made them pre- 
ferred for all services around the king. For when the 
Persian kings ceased to be mountain chiefs, and turned 
into the mighty tyrants of half a continent, their peace 
of mind and trust in man or woman was gone for ever ; 
they might be murdered at any time, and were no longer 
able to look on their nobles as friends and supporters, but 
as dangerous, jealous spies, whom they employed in distant 
satrapies, surrounding themselves with slaves, who might 
be more entirely their own, and visiting every offence with 
all the cruelty inspired by fear. The horrible ingenuity of 
Persian tortures and punishments has never been equalled 
in this world. And the effect of this life was even worse 
for the women than the men. No Eastern monarch 
would have thought his dignity complete, nor his enjoy- 
ment full, unless he had an unlimited number of wives, 
and their slaves, jealously guarded and carefully secluded 
from all intercourse with other men, except when they 
appeared at the king's festivals. On the king's preference 



WORTHIES. 95 

depended which of these women should be regarded as 
queen, and which of his many sons should inherit his 
throne ; and among these ignorant women, who thought 
all employment beneath their dignity, the jealousies, 
rivalries, and heart-burnings this hope occasioned, were 
beyond all our conception, and their atrocities seem like a 
horrible dream. 

Such was the place where the ambitious designs were 
nursed of him whom the Greeks call Xerxes, but whose 
proper name was Khshayarsha — the venerable Shah or 
King ; and here it was that nine years after his return 
from Greece he was murdered by one of his captains — 
B.C. 456. 

His third son, Artakshayarsha, the Fire Shah, was then 
made king at a very early age, and was called by the 
Greeks, Artaxerxes the Long-handed. It was this king, 
who, seeing his cupbearer look sad as he handed him the 
wine at the banquet he was sharing with the queen, 
demanded whether he was sick, or what ailed him. 

That cupbearer was one of the royal line of the house 
of David, and there was a close connexion between this 
Great King and the subject Jews. A frightfully wicked 
and cruel woman, called in Greek history Amestris, had 
been left as the royal widow of Xerxes, and being the 
daughter of a Persian noble, held her elevation, and was 
believed by the Greeks to be the mother of the reigning 
king. But Persian histories say that Artaxerxes, whom 
they call Bahram, or the Wild Ass, was the son of a 
Jewish captive ; and we know that some thirty or thirty- 
five years back the queen- wife of Khshayarsha had so 
offended him, by refusing to show herself unveiled before 
a set of his revellers, that he had deprived her of her 
rank, and had collected all the fair maidens of Susa into 
his palace to choose a new queen from. His choice had 
fallen on that myrtle of the tribe of Benjamin, the gentle 



96 THE BOOK OF 

Esther, whose firm, though timid intercession had saved 
her people from the deadly schemes arranged against 
them by their ancient foe, Haman. Artaxerxes was the 
handsomest man of his time, so that it would seem as if 
he had inherited from her the noble beauty of the house 
of Kish, to which she belonged ; but what became of her 
is not known, and we cannot tell whether she fell a victim 
to the cruelty of Amestris, or whether her son saved her 
and she were the queen who sat by him when he inquired 
the cause of the mournful looks of the Jewish cupbearer, 
Nehemiah. 

Already had Artaxerxes, either for his mother's sake, or 
at her entreaty, shown himself very friendly to the Jewish 
people. In the seventh year of his reign, when he had 
scarcely reached manhood, he had sent a large number of 
priests, Levites, and other Jews, under the great scribe 
and priest Ezra, with large grants of money and pro- 
visions to proceed with the repair of Jerusalem ; but this 
was thirteen years since, and though it was more than a 
century since the great Cyrus had given permission for 
the return of the captives from Judea, very little had been 
done towards the restoration of the Holy City, and Ne- 
hemiah had been hearing a most lamentable account of 
its desolation. 

The fact was that in the seventy years of captivity 
Babylonia had become a home to the Jews. The elder 
men might pine for their mountains, their sea, their 
glorious temple, but the younger generation, born in 
Mesopotamia, had taken root there. They fed their cattle 
in the rich meadows on the willow-shaded banks ; they 
raised grand crops of corn in the fat soil ; they watered 
their gardens of delicious melons with streams from the 
canals between slow Euphrates and swift Tigris ; or, 
settled in the city, they exercised many trades, and 
trafficked the rich stores of India for the spices of Arabia, 



WORTHIES. 



97 



or the purple of Phoenicia. So when Cyrus, at the instance 
of Daniel, issued his edict permitting the return of the 
captives to their native land, under the guidance of the 
Prince Zerubbabel and the High Priest Jeshua, those who 
listened to the call were the few truly religious and earnest 
men, the old people, who had been born in Judea, and 
the poor and restless, who hoped to better themselves by 
a change ; and so many of the wealthy remained that it 
was a saying that only the bran went home — the fine hour 
stayed at Babylon. 

However, there was rare zeal and perseverance in the 
two leaders, and they had raised a building where the 
ritual could be performed, though the elder men wept to 
see how poor an edifice it was compared with what had 
shone on their childish eyes, in its glory of white marble 
walls and gilded dome ; and even then the prophets had 
rebuked the people's eagerness to build for themselves, 
and encouraged them not to despise the day of small 
things, but to look to the happy time when the desolate, 
fire-scathed ruins should again be streets full of merry 
boys and girls playing fearlessly. 

A hundred years and more had passed, and still that 
glad day seemed as far off as ever. Jerusalem was 
beset with enemies : the Bedouin robbers had swarmed 
into the uninhabited country, and fell on the crops as 
soon as they were ripe ; and the mongrel race at Samaria 
had tried to unite with the Jews ; but having been re- 
jected by Zerubbabel, lest the purity of faith and of blood 
should be corrupted, they had become the most bitter 
enemies of the returned exiles, maligning them to each 
new King of Persia, and sometimes actually obtaining 
sanction from the court to the prevention of the build- 
ings. They had persuaded the King that if Jerusalem 
were once fortified, it would rebel, and that no more tribute 
would be paid from the west side of the Jordan ; and thus 
H 



9 8 THE BOOK OF 

the Holy City still remained a place of ruins, without 
gates or walls to keep out the marauders, with a scanty 
population of peasants, sheltering in their hovels among 
the remnants of grand houses, and a few priests carrying 
on their daily worship in a mere fragment of the once 
magnificent Temple. There, by special aid of Heaven, 
had they repulsed the enemies whom Haman had set upon 
them ; and there Ezra, coming soon after with a fresh band 
of priests and Levites, had made some revival of hope 
and zeal ; but this was twelve years ago. Ezra had 
returned to Babylon, and things had become even worse ; 
for Eliashib, the High Priest, had actually permitted his 
grandson to marry the daughter of the Moabite San- 
ballat, who was satrap of Samaria. Tobiah, the governor 
of Ammon, once a slave, had also married into a Jewish 
family : and it was plain that, unless some fresh awaken- 
ing took place, the worship at the Temple would become 
hopelessly corrupted. 

Such was the account that a traveller from Jerusalem 
brought to Susa, to Nehemiah, a prince of the line of 
David, but nevertheless a servant attending on the 
person of Artaxerxes. It grieved him exceedingly, and 
he prayed earnestly for weeks and months, mourning and 
pining with grief, till at length his countenance was 
so worn and sad that the King remarked it as he served 
him with the cup of wine, and asked what ailed him, 
since " this is nothing else than sorrow of heart." 

" Let the King live for ever," replied Nehemiah. 
"Why should not my countenance be sad, when the 
city, the place of my fathers' sepulchres, lieth waste, and 
the gates thereof are burned with fire?" 

The King heard him graciously, and asked, u For what 
dost thou make request ?." and Nehemiah, with an inward 
prayer, entreated to be sent to Jerusalem. The King 
asked for how long : a time was fixed ; and Nehemiah 



WORTHIES. 99 

further begged for letters to the keepers of the royal 
forests, permitting him to cut down timber for his repairs. 
Artaxerxes granted all this, and likewise gave him a 
guard to escort him across the desert that lay between 
the Euphrates and the Jordan. Nehemiah then went to 
Babylon, where he so upheld the cause of restoration as 
to make a fresh collection of volunteers for the return, 
with whom he set forth and safely reached Jerusalem. 

The enemies of Jerusalem, the Moabite Sanballat at 
Samaria, the Ammonite Tobiah, and the Arab Sheik 
Geshem, were so influential that Nehemiah found it 
expedient to make his survey by night, before he spoke 
to any man of his purpose toward the ruined city. A 
terrible picture of desolation he gives in his description 
of that midnight ride round the spots whose cherished 
names had ever been so dear to him, going out through 
one gate burnt with fire, passing round by the grand 
cisterns made by Hezekiah, and finding the next gate so 
blocked up by ruins that he could not enter, but was 
obliged to return by that at which he came out, while all 
the wall between was a mere heap of broken rubbish. 

It was a sight to make a man's heart sink ; but 
Nehemiah collected the chiefs of the Jews, and made 
them an exhortation which encouraged them to do their 
part in rebuilding the walls of the city. Each person 
who had the ability took a portion of the wall, in spite of 
the scoffs and derision of their enemies. " What ! " said 
Sanballat, " will they revive the stones out of the rub- 
bish ?" " A fox will break down all they have built," 
rejoined Tobiah, who seems to have been nearly con- 
nected with Sanballat ; but when they found that Ne- 
hemiah had been made by the King governor of the 
province, and that the defences of the city were proceed- 
ing so fast that it would soon be no longer at their mercy, 
they took serious counsel for their discomfiture ; and each 
H 2 



ioo THE BOOK OF 

pilgrim Jew who succeeded in reaching the home of his 
forefathers brought word that the fierce Bedouin and the 
wild Moabite and spiteful Samaritan, were arming to 
destroy them. 

Still Nehemiah's hope was undaunted. All along his 
works he set sentinels on the watch ; he armed the people 
with swords, spears, and bows, and said he, " Be not ye 
afraid of them. Remember the Lord, which is great and 
terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons and your 
daughters, your wives and your houses." The Jews 
responded manfully, and the wall was still worked at by 
builders who wrought with their weapons at their side, 
ever on the watch. Nehemiah's own attendants divided 
the day between building the wall and standing on the 
watch, with their spears ready to hand ; he himself was 
ever overlooking them, with a trumpeter beside him, ready 
to sound an alarm at the first sight of the enemy. No one 
was allowed to sleep out of the city, and Nehemiah him- 
self never even put off his clothes, that he might ever b$ 
on the alert, while from their hearts came the Psalm : 

" Except the Lord build the house, 
Their labour is but lost that build it. 
Except the Lord keep the city, 
The watchman waketh but in vain." 

Nehemiah, as governor, had authority to obtain pro- 
vision from the people for his own household ; but he 
thought them so heavily burdened already by the tribute 
due to the Great King, that he refrained from taking any- 
thing himself for the maintenance of his guards and 
servants, and at his own expense both supported them 
and kept a table daily for a hundred and fifty Jewish 
rulers, besides all those who came on business or on 
pilgrimage from other lands. This noble largeness of 
heart and hand contrasted with the meanness of the 



WORTHIES. io i 

wealthier Jews, who, having advanced money at an 
usurious interest to enable their poor brethren to pay 
their tribute, were seizing the crops, the estates, and even 
the children of the debtors to be sold into slavery. This 
was a clear infraction of the law ; and Nehemiah, fearless 
of provoking them, openly showed his indignation, and 
annulled their cruel bonds. Everything was finished in 
fifty-two days, and the gates were ready to be hung 
within their portals, when Sanballat and his allies sent to 
invite Nehemiah to meet them amicably in a village in 
the plain ; but being well aware that they designed 
treachery against him, he answered that while he had so 
great a work in hand he could not leave it. After four 
fruitless attempts of this kind, Sanballat sent him a slave, 
bearing a letter, open, as a special mark of insult, inform- 
ing him that it was universally believed that his repairs of 
the fortifications were made in order that he might set 
himself up as King of Judah, like his ancestors ; and that 
he had caused persons to feign themselves prophets and 
excite the Jews to rise in his behalf. Indeed, the wily 
Moabite, well knowing that nothing would be so likely 
to induce the Great King to interfere as to excite his 
jealousy, actually bribed a woman named Noadiah, and 
several false prophets, to put forth predictions of this 
kind. 

Nehemiah, always firm and undaunted, answered that 
all this was a mere device of Sanballat, and when a man 
named Shemaiah affected great terror, and, shutting him- 
self up in his house, advised Nehemiah to take refuge in 
the Temple, he boldly answered, " Should such a man as 
I flee ? and who is there that, being as I am, would go into 
the Temple to save his life ? I will not go in." He after- 
wards found that this persuasion had been another trick 
of Sanballat to terrify and bring suspicion upon him : nor 
was he ever free from the machinations which Tobiah 



102 THE BOOK OF 

conducted by means of letters to his half-hearted kindred 
within the city ; but he fearlessly disregarded all, and 
ceased not one day from his fortifications or his watch, so 
that though his enemies had carried their false accusations 
to Artaxerxes, and obtained a letter from him desiring that 
the works should be put a stop to, the wall was already 
built, and they had no authority to throw it down* 

It is inferred that Nehemiah himself went back to 
Persia, either because his time was up, or because he was 
recalled by the King; but he must have justified himself 
completely, for he was soon at Jerusalem again, and with 
him the great scribe, Ezra, and together these two men 
made " the dry bones " of Judah to live again, and formed 
that free and constant national spirit of perfect trust 
and obedience which had been signally wanting to the 
Israel of old, but as remarkably distinguished the Jews 
of the restoration. It is generally said that a subject 
people have much worse defects than a free one; but 
assuredly the Jews, for full four hundred years of being 
tributary, were far more blameless than they had ever 
been during their whole eight hundred years of liberty. 
Much might be owing, indeed, to their having been 
purified from the ten tribes, who had always been more 
unruly, more luxurious, and more idolatrous than the 
mountaineers of Judah and Benjamin : but the latter 
years of the kingdom of Judah had been disgraced by 
the loss of all virtues, save a perverse sort of courage ; 
and at Babylon so much of the sordid spirit of gain 
had grown upon them, that it had quenched all true 
devotion and patriotism, except that one bright flame 
which had warmed the hearts of the leaders of the return. 

* We here adopt the view given in ' ' Smith's Dictionary," that 
Ezra iv. sums up the complaints made to the Persian court, 
under Cambyses, Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes, and that the 
seventh verse refers to this letter. 



WORTHIES. 103 

If Zerubbabel was as a second Solomon, Nehemiah and 
Ezra were the second Moses and Aaron. 

The first work of Nehemiah on his return was to hang 
the gates, and to cause the priests to dedicate the wall by 
a solemn service. His brother was placed in charge of 
the gates, and of the watch that was to be kept over 
them by the citizens in turn ; and a heavy duty it must 
have been, for, as he pathetically says, " the city was large 
and great : but the people were few, and the houses were 
not builded." However, the enemy seems to have been 
silenced for a time, and the work of restoration proceeded. 
Ezra re-arranged the courses of priests and singing 
Levites, who were to minister at the Temple in turn ; and 
Nehemiah made an exact numbering of all the returned 
Jews, and found them to be only 42,360. The half shekels 
they gave as their ransom were applied to the further 
rebuilding of the Temple. 

There is a beautiful story told in the second book of 
the Maccabees of the recovery of the sacred fire which 
had descended on the Ark in Moses' time, and had been 
always used for incense and sacrifice till the destruction 
of Jerusalem. It was said that the prophet Jeremiah had 
warned the priests to hide the Ark of the Covenant in 
one of the caverns of Mount Pisgah, and the sacred fire 
in a hollow of the Mount of the Temple. The way to 
the cavern of the Ark was lost, and never discovered ; but 
the tradition of the spot where the fire had been hidden 
was preserved among the priests, and search was made 
for it. Nothing was found but muddy water; but 
Nehemiah directed that this should be drawn up and 
poured over the sacrifice upon the altar, and so soon 
as the sun shone out a great flame kindled and again 
renewed the heavenly fire. Artaxerxes, it is further said, 
inquired into the matter, and much increased his gifts to 
the Temple in consequence of this miracle, which would 



104 THE BOOK OF 

indeed have specially impressed a fire-worshipper. But 
Nehemiah says nothing of this in his history of himself, 
and it is not likely that he would have passed over so 
signal a wonder. Indeed, it seems that these great restorers 
worked on in strong faith and obedience, without any 
supernatural token to cheer them. 

The great turning-point of their work was when the 
Sabbath month came, the month that was kept in memory 
of the escape into the wilderness free from Egyptian 
bondage, and which likewise served as the thanksgiving- 
time for the ingathering of the fruits of the earth. 

After the blowing of the silver trumpets on the day of 
the new moon that brought in the month of rest, the 
assembled people intreated that they might hear the Law' 
of Moses, now grievously forgotten, and from morning till 
mid-day Ezra stood upon a stage of wood, reading from 
the Pentateuch in its original Hebrew ; but as the Jews 
had for the most part forgotten their grand old tongue, 
and spoke the dialect now called Aramaic, at every pause 
other Levites interpreted his words. The awful tale of 
the cloud, the voice, the trumpet on Mount Sinai, was as 
a thing new to them ; and when they heard those threats 
in Leviticus xxvi. and the latter chapters of Deuteronomy, 
which they had known to be so awfully fulfilled, and knew 
for the first time how far they themselves fell short of the 
terrible purity of the standard enjoined on them, they fell 
on their faces praying for mercy, and weeping so bitterly 
that Nehemiah, Ezra, and the rest went about among 
them cheering them, and telling them that this was a good 
day of the Lord, and that they should keep the festival 
by joyous feasting and sending portions of their good 
things to the poor. 

And then was kept the beautiful Feast of Tabernacles, 
when each family went forth and gathered long boughs of 
willow and pine, myrtle and palm, and wove them into 



WORTHIES. 105 

booths in memory of the tents of Israel. And the dreary 
ruins of the streets of Jerusalem all became a succession 
of evergreen bowers, where the people lodged through the 
clear autumn nights of that pleasant week — joining early 
each morning in the Temple service, consisting of sacrifices 
at the altar and of Psalms chanted on the steps by the 
full body of priests and musical Levites, and waving the 
boughs they bore in their hands, or offering their own 
tithe of their produce ; then came further readings of the 
Scripture, and the latter part of the day was kept in joyous 
feastings under their bowers, when friends met from each 
part of the land of Judah, and pilgrims from Babylonia 
learnt to know the sons of their fathers' friends. 

Such happy days as these had taught the people that 
their Law was beauteous and loving, before there came 
the true day of mourning, the Day of Atonement, when 
the High Priest confessed all their national sins, and 
bound them as it were on the head of the scape-goat to be 
borne off into the Desert, and entered alone into the Holy 
of Holies to make intercession for them. On that day 
there was true bewailing of their sin. Each person whose 
conscience had been touched as he heard the rule of the 
Law made confession of his own sin, and a grand and 
beautiful general confession and prayer was offered up in 
the name of all as they stood, or knelt, or lay prostrate on 
their faces in courts of the Temple. Afterwards, each man 
bound himself by promise, vow, and seal to keep the cove- 
nant he had newly learnt to understand, and to conform 
himself to those observances which had been impossible 
while there was no Temple. Ezra provided against the 
Law being ever again completely forgotten by establish- 
ing a service in every town and village to be held on the 
Sabbath day. Sacrifice was only permitted at the Temple, 
but prayers were made, Psalms sung, and the Scripture 
read and interpreted in these assemblies or synagogues, 



io6 THE BOOK OF 

and this more than any other institution contributed to 
preserve the strong faith and hope that upheld the Jews 
through every later trial. Ezra likewise collected all the 
Books of the Prophets, compiled the Histories of the Kings 
from various chronicles, and gathered together and ar- 
ranged the Psalms that had been composed since Josiah's 
time, working under the guidance of Inspiration, and 
leaving the Old Testament in the complete state in which 
we have it. Nehemiah seems to have collected the 
uninspired literature of the Jews into a library ; but this 
must have been lost in the after-troubles of Jerusalem, 
and only a few fragments remain to us in the Apocrypha. 
Nehemiah was Tirshatha for twelve years ; but part of 
the time he must have been absent from Judea, for he tells 
us that in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes he came 
home after an absence, and found that Eliashib, the High 
Priest, was preparing rooms among the priests' chambers 
over the Temple cloisters for Tobiah the Ammonite. Ne- 
hemiah, aware that this was against the Law, cast all 
Tobiah's property out ; and indeed there had begun a 
great reformation in the matter of the Jews' marriages. 
For ordinary persons to marry a heathen woman was 
scarcely lawful, though it had been just tolerated ; but 
a priest was expressly forbidden to contract such a union, 
and was thereby disqualified for his office. Many of the 
priests had come to Ezra when they heard this injunction, 
.and had with tears confessed their error ; and these on put- 
ting away their heathen wives were permitted to continue 
their office. It might seem a hard measure; but as the 
priesthood went from father to son, it was the only mode 
of preventing vain pagan fancies being breathed into the 
priesthood by their mothers.' The son-in-law of Sanballat 
and grandson of the High Priest was the prime offender, 
and he would neither put away his wife nor quit his office 
until Nehemiah deposed him ; whereupon he repaired to 



WORTHIES. 107 

Samaria, and Sanballat built a Temple for him on Mount 
Gerizim, where Joshua had engraven the Law, and this 
continued for centuries to be the place of the irregular 
worship of the Samaritans. 

Nehemiah's other reforms at this time consisted in 
enforcing the observance of the Sabbath, preventing laden 
animals from being admitted at the gates, and the Tyrian 
fishermen from selling fish in their streets on that day. 
He ends his own history with his oft-repeated prayer, 
" Remember me, O my God, for good," and we may rest 
secure that that prayer was granted to this "restorer of 
the breach," this most brave and single-hearted man, 
though we know no more of his history, except a tradition 
that he died in Persia in an honoured old age. His 
companion Ezra is said to have died on the journey 
between Babylon and Jerusalem, and a tomb in the desert 
is called after his name, and has never ceased to be 
honoured by the Jews. 

His master Artaxerxes reigned 41 years, and was much 
esteemed and respected ; but he did not escape the usual 
lot of Persian kings, being stabbed in his sleep in the 
year 424. 

Nehemiah was no warrior, — he never fought a battle ; 
but the resolution with which day and night he kept his 
armed watch around those shattered bulwarks with 
swarms of enemies without and traitors and cowards 
within, the grand perseverance which ceased not from 
the work, the noble disregard of threats and treacherous 
whispers, the largeness of heart that thought no sacrifice 
too great for his God and his people, and the wisdom and 
strength of purpose that created a new, vigorous, and 
faithful spirit in a conquered, dejected, almost slavish, 
race, and made them true and brave patriots — all these 
qualities surely place him in the rank of the worthy and 
famous men of old. 



io8 THE BOOK OF 



XENOPHON. 

B.C. 440-350. 

The great battles of the two Persian invasions rescued 
Greece from all further danger from the Great King, and 
during the century that followed the little country was 
like a highly-cultivated garden, blooming with the very 
flower of mankind. Almost all the great works that the 
world has ever since looked on as models of human 
perfection were produced during that brief period, and 
chiefly at Athens. 

That city herself, when rebuilt after her destruction by 
Xerxes, was made as beautiful and stately as art could 
render her. Her Parthenon, the temple to her virgin 
goddess Athene, stands in its ruins as a marvel of beauty, 
and her sculptures, even in fragments, are the treasures 
of museums. Schools and places of study were pro- 
vided for her youth in pleasant groves and gardens, 
surrounded with porticoes supported on columns, where 
the teachers of wisdom might collect their pupils and 
discourse to them. It seemed to be the great study 
of the Athenian mind to make man's life as noble and 
perfect as it could be by calling out all his powers both 
of soul and body. 

No Grecian state could equal or rival Athens, except 
the Peloponnesian Laconia, with its capital Sparta. Here 
there was no attempt at attaining to the thought, the 
learning, or the grace of the Athenians ; the Spartans 



WORTHIES. 109 

despised all such daintinesses, and were galled and 
irritated that, in spite of these follies, the Athenians were 
no worse warriors than themselves, though they were 
kept under a strange, unnatural, stern discipline, which 
was intended to make them unflinching soldiers, and 
nothing else. They were as proud and savage as 
ignorance could make them, were harsh rulers to the 
other Laconian cities, and cruel masters to their slaves, 
and, except when actually in the camp in time of war, 
showed little respect to the two kings, who always reigned 
together in right of the twin-brothers said to be grand- 
sons of the hero-god Heracles. 

Long rivalry and dislike prevailed between the City of 
Wisdom and Beauty and the City of Pride and Stern- 
ness, and at last a war broke out between them for the 
supremacy of Greece. It is known in history as the 
Peloponnesian war, and lasted twenty-seven years. Many 
brave men fought and died in that long and deadly war, 
but they were scarcely such characters as to come under 
the denomination of Worthies. Indeed, the Greek whose 
history is here to be told rather deserves the title from 
his conduct under one great and terrible trial than from 
the other circumstances of his life ; and, moreover, he 
shows more than almost any other person the manifold 
powers and resources cultivated by the training of Athens 
in her best days, since he was at once philosopher, 
soldier, and historian, not in the highest order in either 
line, but very high in the second rank, and bearing 
throughout an honourable, upright character. 

This personage, whose name was Xenophon, grew up 
in the midst of the Peloponnesian war, and was of course 
trained to arms. He belonged to a tribe who furnished 
the cavalry of Attica, and was, therefore, brought up to be 
a thorough horseman. Indeed, his love for the animal 
was so great that in after years he wrote a book upon 



no THE BOOK OF 

the management of horses. His first battle was an un- 
fortunate one ; the Athenians suffered a great defeat : 
Xenophon, who must have been a mere lad, was 
wounded, dropped from his horse in the flight, and 
would have perished if he had not been carried for some 
miles upon the shoulders of his great master, Socrates, 
who, philosopher as he was, was doing his part manfully 
in the battle. 

Socrates was the most wonderful man in Athens — a 
large, burly man, of immense personal strength, and very 
ugly features, but with a depth and power of mind, a clear- 
ness of insight into truth, and a force of character, that 
made him gain the mastery over the most distinguished 
minds of the young men of Athens. He had been bred 
as a sculptor, but his deep thought and mighty talent had 
soon made him a teacher of youth; and whenever there 
was a breathing time in the war, when a short truce had 
been made, or the hostile armies had retired to winter 
quarters in their cities, he might be seen walking in the 
porticoes and gardens, instructing the young men who 
thronged round him by argumentative conversations on 
every subject — war, politics, learning, science. Nothing 
came amiss to him, and he had something strong and 
forcible to say on all matters. He strictly fulfilled his 
duties as a citizen, and also what were deemed the duties 
of a pious man to the gods ; but he had a strong sense 
that there was a Deity above and beyond the gods, the 
real ruler of the universe and rewarder of just men, and 
that there was a guardian to each man's life, 'directing 
him, by an inward voice, to good, and warning him from 
evil. The more this inward voice was followed, the clearer 
it would be any hardship or suffering was better than 
degradation through vice or weakness of spirit, and there 
would surely be better things in a better life for him who 
obeyed his guiding voice in this. 



WORTHIES, in 

Three disciples who listened eagerly to the discourses 
of Socrates are noticeable above all. They were Plato, 
Xenophon, and Alcibiades. Plato laid up his master's 
lessons, and worked them out to the highest perfection of 
truth that man could reach to without direct revelation 
from God. Xenophon took them into active practical 
life, and, while Plato thought, he lived them ; and Alci- 
biades, the graceful, beautiful, spoilt child of Athens, 
received them only with his mind instead of his soul, and 
by his unsteadiness, caprices, and haughtiness ruined 
himself, and did more than any other man to ruin Athens. 

For, after long contention, Athens was worsted. Her 
whole fleet, through the folly of her commander, was 
surprised by the Spartans and destroyed, together with 
almost all her best warriors ; the city was taken, the walls 
pulled down, and thirty tyrants set up over the city, who 
in eight months shed more blood than had been spilt 
through the twenty-seven years' war. This miserable year 
was the 404th before the Christian era, and though at the 
end of eight months the Athenians shook off the Thirty and 
restored the Archons, yet still the city was in a broken, 
dejected state ; and, without walls and without a fleet, 
could attempt no great enterprise. Spirited men, in the 
prime of life, such as Xenophon, would be glad to find 
employment elsewhere ; and, moreover, a residence at 
Athens was becoming a trial to a pupil of Socrates, 
because the populace had taken up an idea that his philo- 
sophy was overturning old fashions, and had thus led to 
their disgrace ; and the comic poet Aristophanes was 
turning it into ridicule by every possible absurdity. 

Just at this time the King of Persia died, and his eldest 
son, Artaxerxes Mnemon, succeeded him ; but Cyrus, the 
next brother, who was governor of Sardis, thought that his 
claim was superior, as he was the eldest son born after 
his father came to the throne. He therefore resolved to 



U2 THE BOOK OF 

march into Persia to dethrone his brother, and proposed 
to strengthen himself by taking with him a body of the 
best Greek troops, who were to be hired to fight in his 
cause. A banished Spartan, named Clearchus, who had 
taken refuge with Cyrus, was to be the leader, and he, 
together with other refugees, sent such descriptions of 
Cyrus's munificence, that the Greeks were wild to go. 
They were only told that they were to conquer and plunder 
the province of Pisidia ; but this seemed to them a field of 
glory and wealth. Young men ran away from their homes, 
and even wealthy and respectable men deserted their 
wives and children. Xenophon, who was between thirty 
and forty, not married, and with no present hope of honour 
or distinction abroad, was asked by his friend Proxenus to 
join the expedition ; but the Greeks had never before hired 
themselves out to fight for the enemies of their country, 
and he asked the advice of Socrates, who told him he had 
better consult the great oracle of Apollo at Delphi. But 
he had made up his mind, and instead of asking the oracle 
whether he should go, he asked to what god he should 
sacrifice for his safety in the enterprise, and was answered, 
to Zeus the King. Socrates very justly said the question 
had not been fairly put ; but the sacrifice was offered, and 
Xenophon started for Asia Minor. He met Proxenus, and 
was taken by him to Sardis and introduced to Cyrus, who 
received him with many compliments, and begged him to 
assist in the campaign against Pisidia, promising to re- 
lease him so soon as that should be ended. He remained 
accordingly, but only as a friend of Proxenus, without 
accepting any rank or command in the army ; and it is 
well for us he did so, since he it is who tells the tale. 

The Greeks had for the most part assembled before 
Xenophon arrived. There were 11,000 heavily-armed 
foot soldiers, a small proportion of horsemen, of whom 
Xenophon was one, and 3,000 javelin throwers and bow- 



WORTHIES, 113 

men : with a band of Rhodian marksmen, and with these, 
together with an immense force of Asiatics from his own 
province and Syria, Cyrus marched. They were picked 
men, and all armed much alike, with scarlet tunics, brazen 
helmets, greaves on their legs, swords and spears, and 
heavy shields, which, when marching, each man covered 
with a leathern case, and slung in his blanket at his back. 
The horsemen had no shields, but heavy cuirasses instead. 
Marching on, by long daily stages, they found themselves 
at Tarsus, in Cilicia, and there it became clear that they 
had passed Pisidia, and that instead of a campaign of a 
few months there, as they had been promised, they were 
being led into the heart of the country of their hereditary 
enemy, far from the sea, which gave them the only pros- 
pect of returning home. They broke out into loud cries, 
threw stones at Clearchus, reproached him with using 
them treacherously, and demanded to be led back again. 

Clearchus stood before them bareheaded, and with 
tears in his eyes. He told them that Cyrus had been his 
friend and benefactor in his exile, and that he had promised 
their services. Faith with Cyrus or the Greeks must be 
broken, but he would stand by his countrymen to the last. 
Then he made them see how difficult even now it would 
be to get home if they quarrelled with Cyrus, and at last 
persuaded them to send to ask what was the Prince's real 
purpose. The answer was that he wanted to attack his 
enemy Abrokomas on the banks of the Euphrates ; but 
not a word was said about his brother. The promised 
pay to each man was increased ; and the Greeks, thinking 
it more dangerous to go back than to go forward, con- 
sented to continue the march, though believing themselves 
still deceived. 

The Persians, though well aware of Cyrus's march, had 
lost so much in valour and foresight since their conquering 
days, that they never attempted to guard the mountain 
I 



ii4 THE BOOK OF 

passes or river banks, and not an enemy appeared through- 
out .the Syrian hills and valleys. At last the invaders found 
themselves on a broad paved causeway, along the banks of 
the great river, the river Euphrates, whose name in Hero- 
dotus's histories was indeed familiar to them, but more 
like a name of fable than reality. None of them had ever 
thought to see it, and they looked at it with no satisfied 
eyes, when, at the city of Thapsacus, they came to the 
place which at certain times of year was shallow enough 
to be forded, though it was half a mile in width. There 
had been ferry-boats for crossing it, but these had been 
destroyed ; and there were no signs of Abrokomas, the 
enemy they had expected to meet, for, indeed, he had fled 
away into Syria. 

Cyrus was obliged to make known the real object of 
his expedition ; and at the same time he promised a 
great donation so soon as he should reach Babylon. 
One division of the Greeks, who had already been 
gained over by secret promises and presents to their 
captain, Menon, who had been born and bred in Persia, 
already plunged into the river before the interpreter had 
finished his speech, and as separation would certainly 
have been fatal, the others were forced to follow. It was 
now the end of summer, when the waters were low, and 
all crossed in safety. For nine days they marched along 
the bank of the river, among rich villages, where Cyrus 
caused supplies to be brought into his camp, in prepara- 
tion for the next stage of their journey. After crossing 
the river Araxes, a tributary of the Euphrates, they were 
in Arabia, and found the country most dreary, consisting 
of low, heaving mounds, uncultivated, uninhabited, and 
with nothing growing on them but wormwood and other 
herbs, and with wild asses, antelopes, and ostriches 
careering amongst them. The Greeks had never seen such 
creatures before, and hunted them ; but the ostriches 



WORTHIES. 115 

and wild asses were excessively swift, and they only 
caught a few antelopes, which were a welcome prize, 
since food was very scarce. They were suffering much 
from hunger and thirst, and could only obtain provisions 
at a high price from the barbarians of Cyrus's part of the 
army. The ground, too, was very difficult ; the bagga-ge- 
horses and mules were weak from want of pasture, and 
the waggons could not be got up the hills without being 
pushed by the men themselves. Cyrus ordered his Persians 
to assist in spite of their gay attire ; but it must have been 
much against the grain, for when, a few days later, there 
was a sharp quarrel between Menon and Clearchus about 
a matter of discipline, Cyrus galloped up in great haste, 
and warned them that if once the unity of the Greek 
army were broken, the Asiatics would be sure to set upon 
it with far more virulence than they would ever show 
against their enemies, the partisans of Artaxerxes. They 
had by this time reached a place called Pylae, on the 
borders of the rich and luxuriant meadows formed by the 
soil washed down by the rivers — a fair, fertile, wealthy 
land, filled with pleasant houses, where the toils of the 
march were at an end ; but its dangers were coming. 

Artaxerxes was reported to be near, with an' army of 
more than a million of men ; and Cyrus was resolved on 
giving battle, declaring many times that it was in the 
Greeks, with their courage and fidelity, that he put his 
trust, rather than in the whole host of cowardly, slavish, 
falsehearted Asiatics who followed him. Still no enemy 
came in sight while they marched along the bank of the 
river. Even when they came to a trench thirty feet broad 
and eighteen feet deep, which had been cut on purpose to 
stop them, there was no one to defend it, and they all 
passed safely. Cyrus began to think his brother would 
not fight, and meant to draw off into the farther parts of 
his kingdom ; but on the morning of the second day after 

I 2 



u6 THE BOOK OF 

crossing the treach at Cunaxa, only seven miles from 
Babylon, a Persian officer galloped up on a horse covered 
with foam, and reported that the king was advancing in 
order of battle. 

Cyrus at once put on his armour, and arrayed the men. 
There was ample time, for only in the afternoon was a white 
cloud of dust seen, which presently became a dark, unde- 
fined spot, by and bye flashing with armour, and revealing 
the Persians, Egyptians, and scythe-armed chariots of the 
huge army. Cyrus rode up to the Greeks, and recom- 
mended Clearchus to fall full on the centre of the enemy, 
where the king was, since to defeat him would give the 
victory at once ; but it was a Greek maxim not to run the 
risk of being surrounded, and the stubborn Spartan did 
not choose to infringe it, and merely said he would act 
for the best. Cyrus then rode on to the Asiatics, whom 
he commanded in person, intending with them to make 
the charge. Just as the two armies were pausing before 
the attack, Xenophon rode up to him to ask if he had any 
last commands. There was a murmur passing among the 
Greeks ; Cyrus asked what it meant. Xenophon said it 
w r as the watchword, " Zeus the Preserver, and Victory." 
" I accept the omen," said Cyrus, and Xenophon went 
back to his post. 

The charge began, and the Greeks rushed on with their 
paean ; but where Cearchus had chosen to place himself, 
their rush was like using a battering-ram against sand. 
The Persians ran away headlong, and only two Greeks 
were killed, one by an arrow, and one run over by a chariot. 
Cyrus waited till he saw this wing successful, and then made 
a charge, which was so successful that Artaxerxes , guards 
broke ; his own rushed off in pursuit, and for a moment the 
two brothers were in sight of one another. They hated 
each other with so dire a hatred, that Cyrus, who had 
hitherto acted with the prudence and self-command of an 



WORTHIES. 117 

European, became a prey to Eastern fury, and crying 
aloud, " I see the man ! " dashed forward upon him, launch- 
ing a javelin, which struck him on the breast ; but the 
wound was slight, and Cyrus was surrounded, dragged 
from his horse, and killed. His Asiatics all fled away ; 
but the Greeks had so little communication with them 
that they did not find out what had happened ; but after 
marching in pursuit of their runaway foes as far as they 
thought proper, they turned back. They found their 
camp empty and plundered, and could get nothing for 
supper ; but still they remained in ignorance till the next 
morning, when Procles, the son of an exiled Spartan 
king, came and told them the truth, that the prince was 
killed, and his army — nowhere. 

Still, Clearchus would have been no Spartan had he 
shown himself daunted, or repentant for his folly of the day 
before. He announced that he was victorious, and meant 
to attack Artaxerxes, and place Ariaeus, Cyrus's favourite 
general, on the throne ; and when Artaxerxes sent the 
Greeks a message to lay down their arms, and submit, he 
answered that this was not the wont of conquerors, and 
that Artaxerxes had better come and take them. In the 
mean time the king offered a truce as long as the Greeks 
stayed where they were, but there was to be war if they 
moved onwards or backwards. Before night, messengers 
came from Ariaeus, whose flight had brought him about a 
day's march behind them, saying, that it was vain to think 
of making him king, as he was not of royal blood, but invit- 
ing them to join him, and return with him to Asia Minor. 
They therefore marched back to him in the night, and he 
and the Greek chiefs swore to be faithful to one another. 
To make the oath more forcible, a bull, a wolf, a boar, 
and a ram were slain, their blood was mingled in the 
hollow of a shield, and the Persian dipping a spear into it, 
the Greek generals each a sword, they swore to be faithful 



nS THE BOOK OF 

to one another to the last. Ariaeus further undertook to 
guide the Greeks safely back to the coast, but he said it 
would be better not to go by the way they had come, as 
they had no store of provisions to support them through 
the desert region they had crossed. 

So at daybreak next morning they began to march, and 
found themselves going, not to the west, where they knew 
their homes lay, but to the east. They were not dismayed 
at this, till, in the afternoon, they found themselves almost 
at the outskirts of the Persian army. They then got 
into order, in case of attack ; but no hostilities were 
offered though all night there was an intolerable clamour 
and shouting among the anxious and supperless Greeks, 
of which Clearchus was so much ashamed that he sent a 
crier round the camp in the morning to offer a reward for 
the discovery of the person who had let loose the ass into 
the camp at night. However, their shouts had been so 
terrible to the Persians that the most polite messages 
came in the morning, offering a truce ; but Clearchus 
roughly answered that the Greeks had had nothing to eat, 
and dinner must come before parley. 

Dinner did come, and, further, an offer to guide them 
to villages were food could easily be procured. This 
they were forced to accept, and they were taken into 
muddy fields and meadows, everywhere crossed by canals 
and ditches full of water. This looked very suspi- 
cious, since it was not the usual time for watering the 
fields ; and Clearchus kept up the most careful discipline 
all the time, carrying his spear in one hand, and in the 
other a stick to chastise the stragglers. Thus they came 
to some villages, where the abundance filled them with 
amazement. Such corn and fruit they had never seen. 
Grapes, dates, melons, and palm wine, amazed and 
delighted Xenophon, though he records that it was at the 
expense cf severe headaches. 



WORTHIES. n 9 

While in this luxurious resting-place, the Greeks re- 
ceived offers from Artaxerxes, through a satrap named 
Tissaphernes, that if they would undertake to offer no 
damage to the country, he would have them guided home 
by a track where they might always buy provisions. To this 
they promised willingly to agree, and waited full twenty 
days for the ratification of the agreement, becoming more 
anxious as time passed on ; but at last the satrap returned, 
and guided them on still eastwards ; and what made them 
further uneasy was to find that Ariaeus and his troops 
were no longer keeping apart from their countrymen in 
Tissaphernes' camp. 

Thus they came to the bank of the other great river of 
Assyria — the Tigris ; and though their camp was in a 
beautiful wooded park, their hearts were ill at ease. How- 
ever, they crossed this river also on a bridge of boats, 
and continued their march, now upwards, towards the 
north, in the country where they were to avoid the famine 
they had suffered in the desert. Thus they came to the 
banks of the river Zab, and made a halt, during which 
Clearchus, Proxenus, Menon, and two other generals, 
were invited to a conference with Tissaphernes. About 
two hundred soldiers likewise went into the Persian camp 
to make purchases, while the rest remained in their own, 
which they had from the very first kept carefully to them- 
selves, away from the barbarians. 

All remained quiet here till the Greeks within saw 
parties of Persian horse galloping after any stragglers who 
happened to be outside the intrenchments, and they were 
wondering what it meant, when one of the soldiers came 
running in, bleeding, and crying out that they were be- 
trayed, and that generals, as well as soldiers, were being 
massacred. There was a purple flag on the tent where 
the five had been received, and they were all killed. 

The first thought of the Greeks was to put themselves 



120 THE BOOK OF 

in array for defence, expecting the enemy to fall on 
them at once ; but, instead of their being attacked, 
Ariaeus rode up with a guard, and called for the officers 
Xenophon and two others came forth, and Ariaeus then 
told them that Clearchus had been detected in a breach of 
the treaty, and had been put to death ; but Proxenus and 
Menon, who had denounced him, were in high favour with 
the great king, " who/' said Ariaeus, " calls on you to sur- 
render your arms, as they now belong to him, having 
formerly belonged to his slave Cyrus." 

This answer brought from Xenophon an indignant 
reproach forAriaeus' own treason, and he soon slunk away, 
leaving his hearers to the full sense of the treachery that 
had been practised on them ever since the battle of 
Cunaxa, and of the truth of Cyrus's warning that his 
own Asiatics hated the foreigners far more than his 
enemies. They found afterwards that they had not yet 
learned the truth as to their generals' fate. As yet 
these unfortunate men were only imprisoned, and Menon, 
who had been a traitor all along, was in hopes of reward ; 
but after a few days, honest, blundering Clearchus, 
Proxenus, and the other two were beheaded, and Menon 
was put to death by slow torture that lasted a whole year. 

For the soldiers themselves, they were in the heart of the 
enemy's country. With a friendly prince, guides, inter- 
preters, and provisions, the journey had taken them seven 
or eight months along the well-beaten track of the ordinary 
route to Persia. What was to become of them, thousands 
of miles from home, separated from it by enormous rivers, 
which they had no means of crossing ; by tracts of path- 
less, inhospitable desert, by nations upon nations of bar- 
barians, who, so far from affording them food, shelter, or 
guidance, would look on them as their natural enemies, 
and injure them by all possible means ? A glance at the 
map, at the positions of Greece and of the Tigris, shows 



WORTHIES. 121 

the desperate condition of this band of warriors ; and 
they had not even the advantage of having ever seen a 
map ; they had but the vaguest ideas of the relative situa- 
tions of each country ; and they had been lured across the 
second river, and led so far astray, that the chance of 
retracing the former route was lost to them. Even when 
they had their generals with them, they had felt their case 
to be most perilous : and now that their chiefs — Clear- 
chus, with his authority and ever-ready discipline ; Menon, 
with his experience of Eastern places and men ; Proxenus, 
with his persuasive reasoning, were taken from them at 
one fell swoop, what could be looked for but that the head- 
less, disconnected, despairing mass would fall asunder at 
once, and become an easy prey to the treacherous enemy? 
So confidently did Artaxerxes and his Persians expect 
that this must be the case, that they had not attempted 
even to storm the camp in the first consternation, and 
the "poor condemned army" themselves were left to 
their stupor of dismay, with no one among them who had 
authority to command or obligation to take responsibility. 
Few appeared when the evening roll-call was read ; hardly 
a fire was lighted to cook the supper ; every man lay down 
to rest where he was. Yet no man could sleep for fear, 
sorrow, and yearning for the home and kindred he thought 
he never was to see again. 

So Xenophon describes that piteous night ; and he fur- 
ther tells how he himself lay full of unrest in the dark? 
musing on their evil plight, until at length he fell into a doze, 
and thought he saw a thunderbolt fall on his father's 
house and set it on fire, surrounding it with a circle of 
flame. This dream seems one very likely to occur to a 
man in so dangerous a condition ; but the Greeks had 
rules for interpreting dreams, and on awakening he began 
to apply them. A light in a friendly house was a good 
sign; and thunder came from Zeus, the god to whom 



122 THE BOOK' OF 

Xenophon had sacrificed for his own safety ; and there- 
fore he hoped : but, on the other hand, the hedge of flame 
that he could not pass was only too like the perils that 
encircled him. Yet still it was a message from the father 
of the gods, and it ought to rouse him. " Why do I lie 
here ?" he said to himself. " Night is advancing. At 
daybreak the enemy will be on us, and we shall be put 
to death with tortures. No man is stirring to prepare for 
defence. Why do I wait for my elders, or for a man of 
another city, to begin?" Here was the inward guiding 
voice of which Socrates had spoken, and he obeyed it. 
Starting up while it was yet dark, he sought out the cap- 
tains who had served under Proxenus, and told them that 
no doubt the enemy would soon be on them ; but it was 
well that the treacherous peace was over, by which they 
had been such losers. " The gods will be on our side," he 
said, " since we have kept our oath under all tempta- 
tions." Then he reminded his friends how much stronger 
and braver they themselves were by nature than the 
Persians, " under favour of the gods." Now, he said, the 
needful thing was for some one to take the beginning on 
himself, without waiting for the others to act. If one of 
them would head the division, he would gladly follow 
him ; but if they desired it, he would not shrink from 
putting himself forward on account of his youth. All 
the captains were rejoiced at his thus offering to take 
the lead, except one, who regarded his proposal as mere 
madness, and recommended submission to the king. But 
this man had already shown himself a coward, the 
holes bored in his ears marked him as born an Asiatic 
instead of a free Greek, and his faint-hearted speech only 
led to his being degraded. The captains then set out to 
call together the surviving officers of the other divisions, 
and about a hundred assembled, when, at the desire of 
the senior captain of his own division, Xenophon repeated 



WORTHIES. 123 

what he had before said. Again every one was relieved 
to have a practicable course set before them, and it was at 
once agreed to elect a general for each division, instead 
of those who had been lost ; and, accordingly, Xenophon, 
who had hitherto been only a volunteer, was chosen to 
supply the place of his friend Proxenus ; but though he 
had only equal powers with the other generals, his clear 
head, trained intellect, ready speech, and hopeful, reso- 
lute spirit, made him the foremost man in that army. 
And this resolution had a true foundation, for it was real 
religion, to trust in the support of the just gods, so long as 
oaths were uprightly kept. It was as near as a heathen 
could get to faith in a God of Truth. 

The next thing was to assemble the common soldiers, 
who, be it remembered, were all free citizens and volun- 
teers, whose consent was needful to whatever their chosen 
officers decided. By way of keeping up their spirits, 
Xenophon stood forth in no dejected mien, but in his 
brightest armour and gayest tunic, as at one of Cyrus's 
reviews, and spoke of the falsehood of the Persians, the 
folly of trying to make treaties with such liars, and the 
certainty that the gods would befriend the true and 
faithful. Then he put them in mind of the Greek vic- 
tories of old, and of their own at Cunaxa, and showed 
them their own strength. As to provisions, even at 
the best, they had had to buy them ; now, after the way 
they had been treated, they would take them. The 
rivers— they would track them to their sources, and 
cross them where they became shallow. They would 
burn their tents and waggons, and encumber themselves 
with nothing unnecessary ; and, above all, order, strict 
discipline, and obedience should be maintained, for in 
these alone their safety lay. " Let each man promise to 
aid the commanders in punishing the disobedient, and so 
shall we show the enemy that we have ten thousand men 



124 THE BOOK OF 

like Clearchus, instead of the one they have seized. If 
any man have anything better to suggest, let him come 
forward." 

No one had any other plan ; every one felt infinitely 
comforted to feel hope and honour revived, and no longer 
to be waiting, like sheep, for the slaughter. Every man 
held his hand aloft to testify his perfect approval ; and 
Xenophon then further proposed that the camp should be 
at once broken up, and that they should march for some 
well-stored villages two miles off. They would move in 
an oblong mass, the baggage in the middle ; the Lace- 
daemonian general, Cheirisophus, in the van, the post of 
honour ; and himself and Timasion, the two youngest 
generals, in the place of danger, the rear-guard. 

Action was of course a great relief, and the whole camp 
was soon in a state of preparation. A Persian envoy 
came up ; but the Greeks had had enough of listening to 
the Persians, and paid no attention to him, only he carried 
off a few faint-hearted deserters. The river Zab, the first 
barrier, was crossed ; and near as the Persians were, they 
seem to have been too much amazed to try to make any 
efficient attack. To them, the sight of the ten thousand, 
as alert and orderly as ever, must have seemed like that 
of a headless body going through the business of life ; but 
soon they began to harass the Greeks by attacks of light 
horsemen, who cast javelins and slung stones, but never 
withstood a charge. In one night, however, the Greeks 
arranged a protecting body of fifty horse, with bowmen 
and slingers, who could beat off these enemies ; and they 
altered their array from the one great mass to smaller 
companies, who could unite or spread themselves out as 
occasion served. 

So they marched on, day by day, through mounds, 
ruins, and villages, the fragments of the great old city of 
Nineveh, even then a desolation ; the ground, on the 



WORTHIES. 125 

whole, being level, and not difficult. But the mountain 
summits that loomed on the horizon, as well as the arrowy- 
rush of the Tigris, warned them of greater toils awaiting 
them ; and on reaching some villages full of great store- 
houses of grain and wine, they halted for four days to 
cure the many who had been wounded by the Persian 
missiles. They found that it did not answer to march on 
while the enemy were hovering round them ; it was better 
to halt under the shelter of any village at hand, until, as 
the day advanced, the Persians were sure to retreat, being 
always anxious to sleep as far as possible from the Greeks, 
lest they should be attacked by night, among their horses 
tied by the leg. Then the Greeks would march on by 
night, and proceed for a good distance unmolested. 

Just as they entered the hilly country, Cheirisophus 
saw a great body of Persians exactly on the opposite side 
of a valley that he must cross. He sent for Xenophon and 
the marksmen from the rear to join in the attack. Xeno- 
phon galloped up, but alone, for he had just seen another 
Persian multitude coming up behind, so that they were 
enclosed on either side. Just then Xenophon saw that by 
climbing a hill still higher than that the Persians occupied 
in front, it would be possible to charge them, and clear 
the forward road. He asked Cheirisophus which of the 
two should lead the troop to be detached for this service. 
Cheirisophus bade him choose, and as he was the youngest, 
he thought the enterprise best befitted him. 

As he set out, a body of Persians perceiving his object, 
started to pre-occupy the height, and there was an abso- 
lute race up the two sides of the hill between the two 
detachments, each cheered on by their own army. In 
the midst, a soldier grumbled because Xenophon was 
riding, and he on foot, whereupon the general leaped 
down, seized the man's shield, and climbed on beneath 
the double weight of this and of his own breastplate ; but 



126 THE BOOK OF 

the other soldiers were so much displeased with their com- 
rade, that they drove him back to his place, and forced 
Xenophon to remount, and ride till the ground became 
too steep for his horse, The Greeks were on the height 
the first, and their enemies seeing this, fell back, and left 
the way open. 

Pleasant villages were found on the other side of these 
hills, and likewise numerous droves of oxen that had just 
been sent across the river for the supply of the enemy. 
But there was a fresh perplexity. Steep mountains were 
seen rising so close to the river, hitherto the guide of the 
wanderers, that it was no longer possible to continue an 
orderly march along the bank ; and the stream was still 
very wide, so deep that the Greeks could not feel the 
bottom with their long spears, and very swift. A Rhodian 
soldier suggested crossing it upon the skins of their 
cattle blown up with air ; but the enemy were seen in 
force on the other side, and could easily have killed the 
men as they came over one by one on these skins. A 
council was therefore held, and the prisoners examined. 
These said that there was a road to the east, leading to 
the old Persian city of Susa ; and that to the west, over 
the Tigris, was the direct way to Syria and Asia Minor ; 
but that if, quitting the bank, the Greeks went over the 
mountain passes to the north, they would have to go 
through the wild Carduchians. There, indeed, they would 
not be troubled by the Persians, for no Great King had 
ever been able to subdue these mountaineers, and they 
had once destroyed an army of 120,000 men ; nor were 
they likely to make much difference between Greeks and 
Persians, but that if it were possible to get through their 
country, there would be found on the other side the Per- 
sian province of Armenia, where the two great rivers might 
be passed at their source, and the Euxine Sea would not 
be out of reach. 



WORTHIES. 127 

This account decided the Greeks, who might hope that 
to Persia would be friends to themselves, and they 
pushed forward, by a midnight march, over the first moun- 
tain. They came the next evening to some villages, which 
had been deserted by the inhabitants, and there halted, 
avoiding all plunder and violence, and trying to invite the 
natives to traffic with them, but none would come near ; 
and just as Xenophon brought up the rear-guard, arrows 
were shot at the strangers. All night fires were seen 
blazing on the hills, and the Greeks augured that they 
should be set upon the next day. Therefore, in order to 
lighten their movements, they sent home all their Persian 
captives, and burned whatever baggage was not absolutely 
necessary to them. The generals stood in a narrow pass, 
and let nothing needless go forward ; and their precau- 
tions were, indeed, required, for the Carduchians were 
assembled on the heights above the long, narrow, winding 
valley through which they had to pass, and shot them 
down with terrible long arrows, of such force, that they 
would pierce shield and corslet, and nail the brazen helmet 
to the head ; and the archers were so light and nimble of 
foot, that they could come very near to take aim, and start 
away out of reach. 

The second day was the worst they had had yet. There 
was a severe snow-storm; the Carduchian attacks were 
incessant, and Cheirisophus went on so fast with the van- 
guard, that Xenophon, with the rear, was hurried out of 
the possibility of maintaining order, and reached the 
halting-place in dire confusion. Cheirisophus had thus 
hastened in hopes of gaining the steep path in front before 
it could be occupied by the enemy ; but it was already 
bristling with Carduchians, and the way was so rugged 
that to climb and fight at the same time seemed hopeless. 

Xenophon had succeeded in capturing two prisoners, 
and these were interrogated whether there was any other 



128 THE BOOK OF 

way. They would not answer, and one actually allowed 
himself to be put to death rather than speak ; but when 
the dead body had been shown to the other, he owned 
that there was a longer way, easier on the whole, but with 
one pass that would need to be mastered, as his country- 
men had already guarded it. 

Two thousand men were at once sent forward by night 
to surprise the guard and secure the pass, while Xenophon 
distracted the attention of the enemy in front by a feint of 
advancing up the road. At once the Carduchians began 
to roll down great rocks, which quite closed up the narrow 
pathway, and half the night the Greeks heard these huge 
masses thundering down. However, they had not been 
long on foot in the morning before the trumpet was 
heard, by which their friends were to announce that the 
pass was won, and the other road comparatively clear. 
Still, however, the Carduchians swarmed on every height, 
and beset them constantly, so that the seven days' march 
through these mountains cost them more men than all 
they had lost through the Persians. So strong was their 
feeling of duty towards their slain comrades, that, in order 
to give them honourable burial, they actually surrendered 
their guide to his countrymen in exchange for their bodies 
on the fourth day, and went on through these savage 
heights without any one to direct their course. The 
fatigue, peril, and suffering had been dreadful throughout 
this week, and had tried the stedfastness of the Greeks 
to the utmost, so that it was a most welcome moment 
when they saw a plain before them full of villages, where 
they could rest and discuss their adventures. 

The river Kentrites was before them, and its bank, 
though guarded by the Persians, seemed to them as 
nothing after the mountains and the Carduchians, and 
they gallantly attempted to ford the river ; but it was 
200 feet wide, more than breast high, with a bed of 



WORTHIES. 129 

slippery stones, and so rapid, that they could not hold their 
shields against the stream, and were exposed to the Persian 
arrows. The passage was found impracticable ; and what 
was worse, the Carduchians were assembling behind them. 
They lay down that night in much despondency ; but 
once more Xenophon had a dream. He thought he was 
in chains, and that they suddenly dropped off ; and his 
hopes were confirmed by two young Greeks, who came 
running up with the tidings that they had lighted on a 
ford about half a mile higher up, where the water hardly 
reached their middle, and the rocks on the other side 
were so rugged that the enemy's horse could not approach. 
At once Xenophon poured out a libation in thanks- 
giving to the gods ; and they all got under arms and 
marched to the spot, where these deeply religious men 
traversed the stream as if performing a sacred rite. The 
priests offered sacrifice, and each man bound his head 
with a garland of leaves, reeds, or blossoms, and the 
paean was shouted. Then, while Xenophon and the horse 
occupied the attention of the enemy by pretending to 
attempt to cross in the former spot, Cheirisophus and 
the van reached the other side, drew up in good order, 
and protected the passage of the baggage. Xenophon 
returning, found himself needed to beat off the Car- 
duchians, who had come up, but turned out not to be 
dangerous in the fiat country. 

However, the Armenians were so much afraid of such 
neighbours, that for fifteen miles beyond the river the 
country was waste and uninhabited. The Greeks were 
again in a Persian province, but the governor made an 
agreement with them that he would not molest them pro- 
vided they only took their needful food without burning the 
houses or offering violence to the inhabitants ; and such 
was the honour and self-command of these gallant men, 
that the agreement was strictly observed. But they had 

K 



130 THE BOOK OF 

another enemy to encounter, and a very dreadful one, for 
it was the month of December, and Armenian winters are 
bitterly cold. The snow lay in many places six feet deep, 
the north wind was cruelly piercing, and their limbs were 
benumbed; some were frost-bitten, others snow-blind ; and 
as Xenophon marched with his rear-guard, he was con- 
tinually coming on exhausted soldiers lying torpid in the 
snow, who, when he tried to rouse them, only replied by 
entreaties to him either to let them alone or kill them at 
once. The Persians, too, who had probably been watching 
for this moment, set upon them again ; but this effec- 
tually roused the sufferers, who started up to assist in 
chasing them away. Darkness was coming on, and 
the rear-guard had to spend the night without food or 
fire, watching over their perishing friends. At daybreak 
some of the van came back to help them, with tidings 
that they had spent the night in a comfortable village, 
where they had taken the inhabitants entirely by surprise. 
It was now absolutely necessary to rest after their toils, 
and the Greeks quartered themselves in the villages, 
which consisted of underground houses, such as the 
Armenians use in the present day, as being cooler in 
summer and warmer in winter. There was plenty of 
food, both meat, cattle, vegetables, and barley wine or 
beer, which was kept in tubs, and sucked up through 
hollow reeds. Here a refreshing week was spent, and the 
headman of one of the villages was induced to become 
their guide ; but he took them through so desolate a tract, 
that Cheirisophus doubted his faith, and beat him, so that 
he ran away in the night. Xenophon was vexed ; and this 
was the only occasion on which he and his colleague ever 
had the least dispute throughout their months of trial and 
joint leadership. 

Having no guide, they again followed the course of a 
river, till they found a steep pass held by more hostile 



WORTHIES. 131 

natives. Xenophon thought it possible to creep round the 
hill, take them in the rear, and dislodge them. " It will 
be in your line," he said to Cheirisophus, " since you 
Spartans are trained to steal, and flogged for being found 
out. Let us see you steal a march." Cheirisophus re- 
torted that the Athenians were apt to steal the public 
money. But this was all in good humour ; and though 
the attempt was made, it was thought so perilous, that 
neither general was risked upon it. It proved entirely 
successful ; the enemy were driven away, and the Greeks 
again descended into villages, where they found rest, 
plenty, and comfort, such as strengthened them to endure 
five days of cold and hunger as they proceeded through 
the country of the Taochi, a wild people, who had fled, 
with all their families, cattle, and provisions. At last, 
these were found by the Greeks, collected on a hill nearly 
surrounded by a river, with only one way of access, and 
that very steep. The supplies of the ten thousand were 
absolutely at an end, and dire necessity obliged them to 
attack the place, since it was impossible to make the 
natives understand that it was food only they needed. 
The poor creatures, no doubt thought them slave-catchers, 
for when the entrance was forced, the women flung their 
children down the precipice and leaped after them, fol- 
lowed by the men, so that hardly a prisoner was made ; 
but so much cattle was taken as supported the Greeks for 
the seven days during which they were fighting their way 
through the country of the Chalybes, the bravest warriors 
they had yet encountered, and not afraid, like. all the rest, 
to come to close quarters with the Greeks. 

At last, however, they reached a city, the first rich and 
well-peopled place they had seen since they left Baby- 
lonia. It was called Gymnias, and they there met with 
friendly treatment, and obtained a guide, who promised 
to lead them in five days within sight of the sea ; and, at 
K 2 



132 THE BOOK OF 

last, while toiling up the slope of Mount Theche, the rear 
of the army heard a loud shouting in front of them. 
Suspecting an attack from the enemy, Xenophon galloped 
forward to see what was the matter : but soon he could 
hear the delighted cry, " The sea ! the sea ! " The sea, 
to these mountain seamen, was almost as their home. 
They saw, indeed, the waters of the Black Sea ; but these 
were the same waves that dashed round their own isles 
and bays. They felt as if their miseries were over; they 
wept and embraced each other for very joy, raised a cairn 
of stones, with a trophy on the top, and rewarded their 
guide with a horse, a silver bowl, a Persian robe, and ten 
pieces of silver, besides some of their rings. 

They had found a friend ; but there was still suffering 
in store for them. Hostile nations still lay between 
them and any place whence they could cross to Greece. 
Through the first of these, the Macrones, they were 
helped by a soldier, who, as he heard their shouts and 
calls, told Xenophon that he believed this to be his own 
country. He had been sold for a slave, when a young 
child, at Athens, but had escaped, and become a warrior ; 
and he still remembered enough of the language to be 
able to assure his countrymen that the Greeks would do 
them no harm, and wished only for a free passage and 
permission to buy provisions. Thus they proceeded 
prosperously through the land of the Macrones ; but the 
Colchians stood up in such force that battle was neces- 
sary ; and Xenophon's speech before it was, " Sirs, these 
alone are our hindrance. We must even eat them raw." 

The Colchians could not resist the attack, and fled, and 
the Greeks rested in their villages, where they found quan- 
tities of delicious honey, which however caused, first, 
intoxication, and then severe illness. It is believed that 
the honey was collected from the Azalea, which has been 
found in other places to yield honey injurious to man. 



WORTHIES. 133 

Recovering from these attacks of illness, the wanderers 
reached the sea-shore itself, and a city inhabited by 
Greeks, namely, Trapezus, or Trebizond, where they 
received a kindly welcome ; and for the first time since 
they had left Tarsus, more than a year before, they knew 
what it was to spend thirty days at rest, both of mind and 
body. Still they had to maintain themselves, and this 
they did by forays on the Colchians, till the Trapezians 
arranged a treaty by which the Colchians bought peace 
by a contribution of bullocks. Poor as the Greeks were, 
they allotted a number of these animals to the fulfilment 
of the vows of sacrifice to the gods that they had made in 
their distress, and a feast was celebrated, with games after 
it, in the fashion of the heroes of old. 

They might well look back with wonder and gratitude. 
Of the whole number, 12,900, who had fought at Cunaxa 
ten months before, after all their sufferings from heat and 
cold, from deserts and mountains, from hunger and un- 
wholesome food, from wounds and accidents, there were 
still surviving 10,000 fighting men ; and, moreover, they 
had saved ail the women and baggage that had gone with 
them. It was the longest retreat ever made by any army, 
and the best conducted. Never did any retreating army 
save so large a proportion of its numbers, and this was 
entirely owing to the discipline, obedience, and self- 
command of the warriors. To our shame be it spoken, 
we have never had a Christian army which has borne 
adversity as did these Greeks. 

Still difficulties beset them which they did not all meet as 
nobly as those of the retreat. They were still far from home. 
Greek colonies, indeed, were placed on many headlands 
all round Asia Minor ; but these were separated by hos- 
tile tribes; and, moreover, the 10,000 had spent all their 
means in buying provisions, and even their countrymen 
could not be expected to maintain them. Besides, as one 



134 THE BOOK OF 

of the soldiers said, they were sick of packing up, march- 
ing, fighting, and keeping watch. They wanted to go 
home by sea, and arrive at home, like their pattern wan- 
derer Ulysses, asleep in his ship. Therefore they were 
delighted when Cheirisophus proposed to go to Byzan- 
tium, where a Spartan friend of his was in command, and 
borrow ships to take them home. 

Xenophon thus remained in charge, and fearing lest his 
colleague might fail in obtaining vessels enough, advised 
borrowing a few ships of war from their hosts at Trebi- 
zond, and detaining merchant-vessels to serve them. 
Also, he advised sending messages to the Greek colonies 
on the coast, to beg them to mend their roads, in case a 
land march should after all be necessary ; but the very 
notion of this made the Greeks so angry, that he merely 
sent this request privately. Their subsistence could only 
be provided for by marauding on the Colchians and other 
hostile tribes. But Cheirisophus did not return ; the pro- 
ceeds of their forays became more and more scanty, and 
the Trapezians gave broad hints that they wished to be 
rid of their guests. Two ships had been lent them. The 
captain to whom one had been confided basely used it to 
sail away home, and desert his comrades ; but the cap- 
tain of the other had done his duty better, and had seized 
various vessels. Hard pressed as they were by poverty, 
the Greeks restored all the cargoes of these ships, and 
merely insisted on retaining them for a short time for their 
own use ; and when there were enough vessels taken to 
carry the women and the sick, the weary 10,000 consented 
to march again as far as the next Greek colony, Cerasus, 
the native home of cherry-trees, which take their name 
from it. 

They waited some days in the land of cherries for Chei- 
risophus and his ships, but still in vain ; and poverty, 
hunger, and home -sickness began to break down the dis- 



WORTHIES. 135 

cipline so nobly maintained. After waiting at the next 
stage, Cortyora, still in vain. Xenophon began to think it 
would be best to seize some native city and found a new 
colony ; and this being reported, a great tumult arose 
against him. Several men came forth and made accu- 
sations against him of having struck or misused them. 
But when their complaints were examined into, it was 
proved that he had only done what was needful to save 
them. One man who accused him loudly turned out to 
have been found by him burying a frost-bitten comrade 
alive, to save the trouble of carrying him ; and his cha- 
racter was so entirely cleared, that for a time he was 
more esteemed than ever. However, the notion of their 
settling in Asia had so startled the rich Greek colony 
of Sinope, as to make it collect a good number of ships, 
which carried them to that city itself ; and here, at last, 
Cheirisophus came to them, having utterly failed in his 
application for ships. 

Disappointed, soured, and reluctant to go home penni- 
less, the Greeks wanted to make some plundering expe- 
dition to fill their purses, and offered Xenophon the 
command. He was tempted by this, but, as usual, sought 
Divine counsel by a sacrifice to Zeus ; and either con- 
science, prudence, or some manifestation, decided him 
against accepting the command, which was given to 
Cheirisophus. But the soldiers had become so greedy, 
that they expected even Greek colonies to pay them for 
not robbing them, and when both Cheirisophus and 
Xenophon refused to be the bearers of such a disgracefu. 
message, sent envoys of their own, who met the reception 
they deserved. 

Xenophon, sick of the degraded state of the men, 
whose patience had once been so glorious, longed to leave 
them and take his passage alone, as would have been 
easy in any Greek colony ; but their distress and his 



136 THE BOOK OF 

regard for his old comrades, still kept him with the army, 
to which he was the more necessary, as his faithful friend 
Cheirisophus, worn out with toil and anxiety, died of a 
fever at Calpe. The Spartan Anaxibius, who commanded 
at Byzantium, took a bribe from the Persians to get the 
wanderers out of Asia, and he transported them over the 
strait ; but he then gave them no help, and was about to 
dismiss them without food or money. They were so 
much offended, that Xenophon could with great difficulty 
hinder them from sacking the town in revenge for the 
inhospitality with which they had been treated. He per- 
suaded them to forbear such an outrage on the peaceable 
Greeks of Byzantium ; but they remained in great dis- 
tress, for the gates were shut against them ; and Anaxibius 
proclaimed that if any one of them were caught inside the 
town he should be sold for a slave. Happily at this 
moment came an offer from a Thracian prince, named 
Scuthes, to take them into his service if they would assist 
in reducing some revolted tribes. He made large pro- 
mises ; but when, after two months' severe fighting, they 
had overcome his enemies, he turned them off without a 
farthing of payment ; and Xenophon was so poor that he 
was forced to sell his horse, which had carried him from 
Armenia, where he had been forced to leave the worn-out 
animal that had climbed the Carduchian hills. 

Again the Greeks were in grievous plight. Those who 
could find the means had gone home singly ; and the 
numbers were reduced to 6,000, many of them homeless 
adventurers, grown reckless through the injuries they 
had received, and discontented with their faithful friend 
Xenophon, because they unjustly fancied that Scuthes had 
made presents to him in secret. Hurt and perplexed, Xeno- 
phon made a sacrifice to Zeus, earnestly entreating pro- 
tection ; and that very day came messengers from the 
• Spartans, who relieved all his anxiety. A fresh war had 



WORTHIES. 137 

broken out between Sparta and Persia ; and this. expe- 
rienced band had become so valuable, that an advance of 
pay was sent to secure their services, and the envoys 
bought back Xenophon's horse, and restored it to him. 
He had, however, made up his mind to return to Athens 
so soon as he had seen his comrades safe to Pergamos, 
where they were to meet the Spartan general to whom 
they now belonged. On the way, they heard of a very 
rich Persian, who lived in a fort with a large household 
and much wealth ; and as they were at war with his 
country, Xenophon had no scruple in attacking him, 
plundering him, making him prisoner, with his wife and 
friends, and putting them to a heavy ransom, which, to- 
gether with the booty, replenished the purses of all the 
6,000. The soldiers showed that they knew how well 
Xenophon had served them, for they allotted to him a 
very considerable portion of the spoil, so that he no longer 
feared returning home crestfallen and beggared. Well 
might they reward him, for seldom have such unselfish- 
ness, faithfulness, and patience ever been shown as he 
had manifested during his long trial, to say nothing of the 
stedfast, hopeful resolution, powei of resource, and force 
of character tnat had times without number saved them 
from their enemies and from themselves. It was his sense 
of Divine protection, his habit of watching for tokens of 
the Divine will, his loyalty to all that a heathen could 
discover of true religion, that had nerved him thus to bear 
and forbear : and this sense of religion had been im- 
pressed on him by the great practical philosopher Socrates. 
To him, then, Xenophon longed to hasten with the history 
of his manifold trials, so soon as he had dedicated a por- 
tion of his spoil to the great Ephesian Artemis, " whom 
all Asia and the world worshipped." 

Then he sailed for Athens ; and, after an absence of 
two years and a half, landed at the Piraeus. But it was 



133 THE BOOK OF 

to hear that his beloved master Socrates was dead, dead 
only a few weeks ago ; dead, not from age or disease, 
but by the sentence of the Athenians. His teachings had 
gone too deep for his people ; a charge had been raised 
against him of corrupting youth, and subverting old laws 
and customs. Advantage had been taken of one of the 
Thirty Tyrants having been his pupil, and the sentence 
of death had been passed on him. Plato and his other 
friends could tell of his noble patience, the calm hope that 
brightened his resolution as he took the hemlock draught, 
and his cheerful conversation with the beloved disciples 
who gathered round him in reverent grief to watch as the 
deathly stupor stole over him. But the great light of 
Athens was gone, and had testified almost by a martyr- 
dom to the eternal Truth that he had preached. 

The grief and anger of Xenophon stand to this day 
shown forth in the opening sentence of the book in which 
he recorded the sayings of his beloved master. Never could 
he forgive his countrymen for having slain that great and 
good man ; and no doubt he showed his feeling plainly 
ere yet they had begun to repent of their crime. He 
shared in the hatred that had fallen on his master, and 
unable to bear with the place that had shown itself un- 
worthy of Socrates, he quitted Athens, and went to rejoin 
his old companions in their campaign in Asia Minor. 
They chose him as their commander, and he served with 
them under the command of the Spartan king Agesilaus. 
This king was small and lame, but an excellent general, full 
of daring and hardiness, and with all the indifference to 
pain and discomfort that Spartan training could pro- 
duce. Xenophon became much attached to him. He 
actually served in the Spartan army against his native 
city, an act that is unworthy in any man, but which can 
more nearly be excused in him than in others, when we 
remember that it was no selfish offence that alienated 



WORTHIES. 139 

him, but that his fellow-citizens had forfeited his regard 
by their rejection and murder of the greatest man of the 
ancient world. The Athenians declared him an exile, and 
he received permission from the Spartans to settle himself 
near Olympia, at Scillus, a place which they had recently 
taken from the Eleans. Here he sent for Philesia, the 
wife he had married in some of his wanderings, and he 
obtained from the Temple of Artemis, at Ephesus, the 
silver which he had there dedicated. He laid it out in 
purchasing lands for her and building a little shrine, 
where he placed an image and an altar to her, all as like 
the Wonder of the World, and the hideous statue within 
it at Ephesus, as he could render it. He put up an in- 
scription, declaring the spot sacred to Artemis, and that 
whoever tilled the land must offer a tithe of all the produce 
to her. An orchard of fruit-trees was close to the chapel, 
and there was pasture for herds of cattle near at hand, 
with a wooded mountain beyond full of game. 

Xenophon lived on his own lands close by, and super- 
intended the goddess's farm, while he attended to his 
own property, hunted, and wrote the history of his great 
retreat, and a memoir of his own time ; also a curious 
half fictitious history, in which he described the first great 
Cyrus of Persia as a perfect model for princes, statesmen, 
and warriors. He likewise wrote treatises on the manage- 
ment of horses and dogs, and altogether seems to have 
spent his time between study and country occupations. 
Agesilaus advised him to bring up his two sons in the 
Spartan fashion, but it does not appear whether he did 
so. Once a year he celebrated a great feast to Artemis, 
when the tithes were offered to her, and she afforded 
a plentiful feast to all the villagers round, consisting of 
barley meal, fruits, wheaten bread, meat, and venison, 
which last was obtained at a grand hunting-match con- 
ducted by Xenophon and his sons, and to which he loved 



140 THE BOOK OF 

to invite all his old friends and fellow-soldiers. Living so 
near the great temple at Olympia, where the games were 
held every three years, he was constantly visited by all that 
was choicest and most promising in Greece, and was often 
able to converse upon great questions, as well as to hear 
all the news of the time from the best authorities. 

This happy life lasted twenty years ; and then, as Sparta 
lost power and Thebes gained it, the Eleans drove out 
the settlers from Scillus, and Xenophon had to flee to 
Corinth ; but peace being made between Athens and 
Sparta, when they made common cause against Thebes, 
there is reason to think he was recalled. He lost his 
eldest son, Gryllus, fighting in the Athenian army at the 
battle of Mantinea, in 362, when Xenophon was far 
advanced in years. He is said to have lived to be ninety 
years old ; but there is no record of his death, and he 
must have continued his record of history almost to the 
last, for he himself describes the fight of Mantinea, and 
the gallant conduct of his son. His banishment, and the 
cruel error of Athens, prevented the latter half of his life 
from being as useful or glorious as the first ; and it is im- 
possible not to regret the prejudice and injustice he some- 
times shows both towards Athens and Thebes. But take 
him altogether, there have been few men equal to Xeno- 
phon in the highest kind of courage, or in noble disregard 
of self or self-interest. 



WORTHIES. 141 



EPAMINONDAS. 

Circa, B.C. 410 — 362. 

Northward of Attica lay the state of Bceotia, a country 
with fewer mountains in it than most of the Greek dis- 
tricts, and of more fertile soil, where the inhabitants 
were sturdy and prosperous, well fed and easy, but less 
quick-witted than their southern neighbours, and with a 
rude dialect. It was the fashion to laugh at the Boeotians 
as homely and dull ; they were said to win at the great 
meetings for the Greek games by main strength and solid 
weight, instead of by skill and address, and to play only on 
the flute, because they could not sing to the sound of the 
lyre. The Athenians in especial despised their slowness, 
and hated them for having fought on the Persian side in 
the battle of Pla.taea. There were several cities in Bceotia, 
and these were wont to league themselves together in one 
body, and choose seven governors, whom they called 
Bceotarchs, and kept in office for a year, as it would seem, 
under the guidance of the senior or most able of the 
seven. 

The leading city of Bceotia was Thebes. It was one of 
the oldest in Greece, and had some of the most wonderful 
of the legendary stories connected with it. The founder 
was said to be a Phoenician named Cadmus, who came 
from the East to seek his sister Europa, when Zeus, in the 
shape of a bull, had carried her across the sea. On his 



i 4 2 THE BOOK OF 

way, Apollo met Cadmus, and told him to follow a cow, 
who would show him the place where he was to build a 
city. He came to a fountain beside which lay a great 
dragon. He killed the monster, and buried its teeth in 
the ground, whereon this strange seed sprang up into fully 
armed warriors, who all were about to fall on him ; but 
when he threw a large stone among them, they turned 
their rage on each other. Some were killed, and the sur- 
vivors becoming peaceable and ordinary men, owned 
Cadmus as their chief, and took part in founding the city 
of Thebes, with the fortress that was termed the Cadmeia. 
The highest families among the Thebans considered 
themselves to be descended from this seed of the dragon's 
teeth, and bore the dragon as their ensign. 

It is with a member of one of these dragon-sprung 
families that we have now to do, — Epaminondas, the son 
of Polymius, a man who, in spite of his noble blood, was 
very poor, though able to give his sons all the training of 
body and mind that befitted Greek gentlemen. Just as 
Epaminondas was old enough for deep thought, there 
came to Thebes an old philosopher named Lysis, who had 
been expelled from his own city, Tarentum, and took 
refuge among the Thebans. This man belonged to the 
brotherhood instituted by Pythagoras, the earliest of the 
philosophers, who had held up before his pupils so high 
and pure a standard of perfection, that he is thought to 
have learnt it from some of the favoured race of Israel. 
He and his disciples went as far as thought and observa- 
tion could carry them into the secrets of nature and 
science, the relation of numbers and forms, the courses 
of the heavenly bodies and the like, and they came to the 
conclusion that there was one rule of concord running 
through everything in heaven and earth, and that the key 
to this was to be found in the musical octave. The gods, 
the sun, moon and stars, sea and earth, men and animals, 



WORTHIES. 143 

were all meant to form one vast concert or great choir, and 
only crime, falsehood, treachery and violence, disturbed 
the human part of the great accord ; while yet there were 
hopes, uncertain but still earnest, that men who did their 
best in this life would be refined gradually after death to 
play their part in full perfection. 

It was a large portion of the truth that Pythagoras had 
thus worked out, that Lysis handed on, and that Epami- 
nondas embraced with all his heart and soul. " Virtue is 
the harmony of the human soul." That was his watch- 
word and his law, and he strove all his life to act up to it. 
Much of his time was spent in learning, which when every 
book had to be separately written out on rolls of parch- 
ment or Egyptian reed, was chiefly accomplished by con- 
versations with philosophers, by borrowing and copying 
books, or learning them by heart. The magnificent Athe- 
nian tragedies were now added to the poems of Homer as 
necessary studies for every gentleman, and Epaminondas 
was not contented to stop short like his countrymen with 
flute-playing, but learnt to chant these grand compositions 
to the lyre, with the perfect accent and modulation of 
voice and expression that was required by Greek critics. 
For to him lofty music and poetry were the key-notes of 
the universe, and all that was good and beautiful in nature 
or art did but chime in with those notes. Therefore he 
was careful to bring his own body and limbs to the utmost 
perfection they were capable of, and, instead of being 
satisfied with the clumsy weight and strength that the 
Boeotians tried to maintain by high feeding, he trained 
himself with spare and wholesome diet to the greatest 
swiftness, agility, and address, that he could attain, so as 
to have perfect power over his whole person. He kept the 
same watch over his mind and actions. He would not 
speak an untruth even in jest ; he was so modest, that it 
was said that no man who knew so much ever spoke so 



144 THE BOOK OF 

little ; and he hated all manner of fraud, injustice, and 
wrong. 

The Spartans, as has been seen, had obtained the chief 
power in Greece, and they domineered over their allies in 
a most unbearable manner. In the year 387 they called 
on the Thebans to assist them in besieging the city of 
Mantinea, in a valley between Argos and Arcadia, and in 
the troop which was sent at their summons, Epaminondas 
marched. The Mantineans sallied forth, and there was a 
sharp battle, in the course of which Epaminondas saw a 
noble Theban youth, named Pelopidas, fighting desperately, 
and falling at last under seven wounds, upon a heap of 
slain. He sprang forward to defend and rescue the body 
of his countryman, and all his activity and strength were 
needed, for the enemy pressed him hard, and he had re- 
ceived a severe spear-wound in the breast, and a sword- 
gash in the right arm, before the Spartans made in to the 
rescue, and bore them both off. 

Pelopidas proved to be alive, and when he found that 
his rescuer had been the gentle scholar Epaminondas, his 
gratitude was unbounded, and a warm friendship sprang 
up between the two, such as the Pythagorean philosophy 
delighted to promote. The studies and deep questions in 
which the elder friend delighted were indeed far beyond 
Pelopidas, who used to go out hunting with dogs, pole and 
net, when Epaminondas repaired to his books and philo- 
sophical friends ; and on the other hand, Pelopidas, who 
was very rich, complained that there was one man in 
Thebes who would take no gift from him, nor share 
any of the luxuries of his wealth. However, his friend's 
example so acted on him in this matter, that he lived as 
plainly as did Epaminondas, maintained numerous poor 
citizens out of his abundance, and when his friends re- 
monstrated with him, he pointed to a helpless cripple, arid 
said money was only necessary to such a man as that. . 



WORTHIES. 145 

The friends, like all other right-minded Thebans, were 
anxious to break off the Spartan thraldom ; and the other 
party in the state, fearing they would prevail, sent secret 
intelligence to a Spartan general who was in the neigh- 
bourhood, and when all the citizens were occupied with a 
great religious festival, they admitted him and his troops 
into the Cadmeia, whence they could overawe the city. 
It was a wicked act of treachery, and the Spartans were 
so much ashamed of it that they dismissed their general ;. 
but nevertheless they kept the Cadmeia, put to death the 
Bceotarch who opposed them, and drove three hundred 
of the best citizens into exile. Pelopidas was among them ; 
but so quiet and poor a student as Epaminondas was 
never thought of or noticed by the Spartans and their party. 
He therefore remained at home ; but he kept up a cor- 
respondence with his friend, who had gone to Athens, and 
he cheered the hopes of the young men at home, advising 
them to take every opportunity of contending in warlike 
exercises with the Spartans of the garrison, so as to learn 
their modes of fighting : and. thus he waited patiently for 
better days. 

In the year 379, the fourth- since the exile, urgent 
messages and letters came to him from Pelopidas, asking 
him with the other patriotic citizens to take part in a plot, 
by which some of the exiles, with Pelopidas at their head, 
were to creep into the city, go to a banquet in the disguise 
of women, there kill the worst of the time-serving 
Bceotarchs, proclaim liberty, raise the citizens, and expel 
the enemy from the Cadmeia. But Epaminondas, much 
as he loved his city, and though his heart burnt at her 
disgrace, was too conscientious to join in a scheme which 
was certainly treacherous, and might spill much innocent 
blood. It did not agree with the law he had made to 
himself, and he refused to share in it, or even to know 
anything about it. 

L 



146 THE BOOK OF 

At last, however, in the darkness of a winter night, 
when storms of snow came drifting in from the mountains, 
there was a shout throughout the city — " Freedom ! 
Freedom to Thebes ! Down with Spartan tyranny ! M 
Then out leapt Epaminondas. He snatched his sword 
and spear from the wall, and hurried forth. All the 
youths he had taught and encouraged came thronging 
round him, and followed where his voice led them, to the 
place of assembly. And there, by the glare of hastily- 
lighted torches, under the portico of a temple, he saw his 
own Pelopidas, safe at home, though stained with blood, 
and with others of the exiles and many of the residents 
around him. The plot had succeeded. Twelve of the 
youngest and boldest exiles had crossed the country in the 
disguise of hunters, and entering the city one by one at 
nightfall, had hidden themselves in the house of one 
Charon. Some in long veils, as women, had gone to the 
banquet, to which a fellow-conspirator had lured two of 
the Bceotarchs, and had there slain them, and Pelopidas 
had killed the stoutest and bravest of all in a hard-fought 
combat on the threshold of his own house. All the rest of 
the exiles would march into the city at daybreak, and the 
people, who thronged fast around, were shouting that 
Pelopidas should be their new Bceotarch. 

So many rallied round him, that he was able to blockade 
the garrison in the Cadmeia ; and they lost heart much 
sooner than was usual with Spartans, and surrendered on 
being allowed to march out safely. Thus Thebes was free 
again, but of course at the expense of a war, which she 
sustained by allying herself with Athens. 

After six years, however, in 371, a peace was to be 
made and settled, and Epaminondas, who was one of 
the Bceotarchs, as the best speaker in Thebes, was 
sent to plead her cause. The little lame Spartan king, 
Agesilaus, reputed the best general in Greece, was there 



WORTHIES, 147 

on behalf of his city ; and he insisted that the Thebans 
should only make terms for their own single city, instead 
of for all Bceotia, while Epaminondas answered that he 
would never consent to this, unless in the same manner 
Sparta separated herself from all the other cities of Laconia ; 
and he spoke so admirably, that Xenophon and the other 
Athenians were amazed at such eloquence in a Boeotian. 
However, they disliked the Thebans too much to stand 
by them, and as Epaminondas would not give way, Thebes 
was left out of the treaty of peace, and Athens looked on, 
well pleased to think that now the Thebans would be 
punished for their old offence of fighting for the Persians. 
Thus were the Thebans left without allies, and Epami- 
nondas could only hurry home to warn Bceotia to assemble 
in arms, for the Spartans were already marching on them ; 
and indeed both sides acted with such haste, that, only 
twenty days after the conference broke up at Sparta, there 
were 11,000 enemies, of whom 700 were Spartans dorn, 
with their king Cleombrotus at their head, full in the 
midst of Boeotia, and on the slope of the hill opposite to 
them, near the little town of Leuctra, were only 6,000 
Boeotians. 

Nobody seemed to have any doubt how the battle must 
go. The Spartans had never been beaten, even by the 
Athenians, when their force was the larger, and many of 
the Boeotians did not care enough for Thebes to be de- 
pended upon : moreover, the Boeotarch whose turn it was 
to command was the gentle studious philosopher who 
was thought to know more of books than of armies. The 
signs drawn from the sacrifices were unfavourable to 
Thebes, and though Epaminondas declared he believed 
no omen that forbade a man to fight for his country, he 
was known to despise all the prognostics that were in 
vogue with his countrymen, and the general feeling was 
that it was a question whether to die honourably or submit 

L 2 



h8 the book of 

tamely. Only six Bceotarchs were in the camp : three were 
against fighting, Epaminondas and two more voted for a 
battle : and the seventh, coming in that evening, gave him 
the majority. That night Pelopidas dreamt that he had 
a visit from the spectre of a Theban, who had received a 
great injury from a Spartan at that very spot, and had so 
cursed it that it was sure to bring them evil, provided the 
Thebans would sacrifice a red virgin at the place. Though 
Pelopidas told his dream, men like him and Epaminondas 
had now come to regard human sacrifices with horror ; but 
it was not so with the ruder Boeotians : and while the one 
side was arguing that the gods were no cruel demons to 
delight in human blood, and the other that the sole chance 
for Thebes would be lost unless the dream were obeyed 
to the letter, a beautiful young chestnut mare came canter- 
ing towards them, the soothsayer cried out that here was 
the red virgin, and the Boeotians were encouraged without 
so fearful an action to weigh on the free spirit of the 
friends. 

Pelopidas was not a Bceotarch, but from his rank was 
captain of the choicest of the Theban troops, the Sacred 
Band of horsemen. Now, in every previous Greek battle, 
the two armies had spread themselves out in two great 
lines, and fought hand to hand. But Epaminondas 
thought his best hope was to take the enemy in a manner 
they did not expect. He would not waste his strength on 
the mere allies, but drew up his left wing in a column 
fifty men deep, to fall with full weight upon the Spartans 
themselves, whose order of battle was only three rows 
deep ; and Pelopidas and his horse — the one matter in 
which the Thebans were superior — were to fall on the 
enemy and cut them down as soon as they wavered. 

The Spartans were flushed with wine when the fight began, 
but they fought as gallantly as usual. The tremendous 
charge, however, was more than they were prepared for, 



WORTHIES. 149 

and the wild onset of Pelopidas completed their confu- 
sion. Cleombrotus was struck down and carried off 
dying to the camp, the allies broke and fled, and the The- 
bans found themselves undoubted masters of the field ! 
Epaminondas had gained such a victory as no other man 
in Greece had ever won, considering the fame and quality 
of his assailants. Four hundred out of the seven hundred 
Spartans lay dead, and about a thousand more of their 
allies ; the rest remained in their fortified camp, which 
was too strong to be stormed, and at the intercession of 
the King of Thessaly they were allowed to march home 
unmolested. 

Epaminondas was free from all undue elation for his 
wonderful victory, and merely said he was happy to think 
how greatly it would please his father and mother. He 
was entirely the leading man of Thebes, and Thebes 
had by this victory become the mightiest state in Greece. 
His desire was to lead his fellow-citizens to use their power 
for good, and not for evil. He hindered them from re- 
venging themselves on the little city of Orchomenus, and 
he assisted in the rebuilding of Mantinea, and other 
cities that had been misused by Sparta, and might now 
act as a check on her. 

Two years after the battle of Leuctra, in 369, he was 
Bceotarch again ; and so was Pelopidas : and they together 
led an army into the Peloponnesus to protect their new 
foundations, and free a large portion of the country from 
the Spartan domination. For these purposes they were 
forced to remain there four months beyond their term of 
office, and when they returned, they had to defend them- 
selves for the irregular proceeding before the public 
tribunal. Epaminondas spoke for both, and the deeds 
they had done were so full a justification, that they were 
both re-elected Bceotarchs. 

However, Epaminondas had enemies ; many thought him 



ISO THE BOOK OF 

far too gentle. If he took a Boeotian prisoner fighting on 
the enemy's side, he would put him to ransom, instead of 
slaying him in the approved Theban fashion ; he hindered 
spoliation of hostile cities ; and his plans for the true glory 
of Thebes were too noble and far-sighted for the mass 
of his countrymen. So, in the year 367, while Pelopidas 
had been sent to transact some business in Persia, the 
Thebans not only refused to re-elect Epaminondas as 
Bceotarch, but gave him the most despised office they 
could choose, that of superintending the cleansing of the 
city streets. But so far from being ashamed of it, he 
turned his whole might and attention to it, and fulfilled the 
duties in such a way that it became both important and 
honourable. 

When Pelopidas came home, he was sent on another 
mission, in the course of which he was treacherously 
seized and thrown into prison by the tyrant Alexander of 
Phera, in Thessaly. A Theban force was sent to deliver 
him, and Epaminondas was content to march with it as 
a common citizen soldier ; but the two Bceotarchs in 
command managed so badly, that they were beset by 
Alexander with clouds of horsemen, forced to turn back, 
harassed on all sides, and nearly starved. It was felt 
that only one man could save them, and the whole army 
cried out for Epaminondas to take the command. He 
placed himself in the rear-guard, and by his wonderful 
skill and foresight safely brought the army home, and 
was once more felt to be the only man who could uphold 
the Theban name. 

Again chosen to his old post of Bceotarch in 365, he 
marched at the head of an army to rescue his friend; and 
the terror of his name was such that the prisoner was 
safely restored, and a truce was made. Alexander was a 
horrible tyrant, cruel beyond measure ; and Pelopidas had 
not only suffered much personally from chains and bad 



WORTHIES. 151 

nourishment, but he had heard frightful stories of the 
savage deeds of the wretch ; and so soon as the truce was 
over, in 363, he led seven thousand men into Thessaly to 
punish this monster. The battle was close beneath two hills 
called Cynocephalse, or the Dogs' Heads ; and the Thebans 
had gained considerable advantage, when Pelopidas, see- 
ing the hateful tyrant himself rallying his men, was in- 
flamed with such a passion of furious rage, that he dashed 
forward, shouting his name, and defying him to fight with 
him. Alexander fell back in terror, his men closed in, 
and Pelopidas was hemmed in and killed in the thick of 
the battle, while his troops were rushing on the enemy, 
not seeing where he was. 

Intense was their grief when his gallant voice was 
missed, and still more when his corpse was found. They 
piled up all the arms taken from the enemy as a trophy 
round it, cut their hair and their horses' manes in token 
of mourning, and lighted no fire, tasted no food, on that 
sad night of victory ; and the mourning at Thebes was 
no less in its degree when the brave man, thirteen times 
Bceotarch, was borne home for his funeral rites. 

He to whom the loss was most severe, Epaminondas, 
was at sea, conducting the fleet which had been raised by 
his counsel. In his absence the Thebans took their bar- 
barous vengeance on Orchomenus, the city he had once 
protected ; and his return from his eight or nine months' 
voyage must have been a very sorrowful one. But he was 
not destined long to survive his friend. In the summer of 
362 he was sent with a Theban army to the Peloponnesus, 
to defend the allies there from the attacks of Sparta. He 
had almost taken the city of Sparta itself, but that the 
army, with old King Agesilaus, hastened back before he 
could surprise it; and then both armies marched upon 
Mantinea, the very place of Epaminondas' first battle and 
his rescue of Pelopidas. 



152 THE BOOK OF 

The battle was a fierce, well-contested one. At length 
the Spartan forces began to break. Epaminondas was 
singled out by the foremost, and darts were showered on 
him, some of which he turned off with his shield, others 
he grasped and hurled back at the foe. The rout of the 
enemy had just begun when a spear struck him full in the 
breast, and as he fell, it broke, leaving the point fixed in 
the wound. His comrades held him up and bore him 
back, and the whole army stood still in consternation, 
not making another step forward in pursuit of the flying 
enemy. 

He was taken, in great pain, with his hand on the fatal 
spear, to a hillside, where he recovered enough to ask if 
his shield were safe, for to lose it was reckoned a great 
disgrace. It was held up to him by his armourbearer, 
and he gazed anxiously down on the flying Spartans, and 
knew the day was his ; and then, as the surgeons pro- 
nounced that death would probably follow on the extrac- 
tion of the spear, he bade them wait till he could speak 
with the two next in command. He was told they were 
both killed. " Then/' he said, sadly, " you must make peace 
with the enemy." But seeing his friends' tears, he added, 
cheerfully, " This day is not the end of my life, but the 
beginning of my happiness and completion of my glory ;" 
and as they mourned for his death, unmarried and child- 
less, he said, " Leuctra and Mantinea are daughters enough 
to keep my name alive." Then, while others faltered, un- 
able to bear to remove the dart, he drew it forth with 
a firm hand, and the gush of blood soon closed the life 
that may almost be called holy. As we have seen, he died 
in the trust that new bliss was beginning for him, and that 
his part in the great harmony of the Divine will would 
become more clear and perfect. And surely none can 
doubt that one who had so " worked righteousness" by the 
imperfect light vouchsafed him was accepted before Him 



WORTHIES. 153 

who had seen him walking after the law that he was unto 
himself. 

The broken-hearted Thebans buried him where he had 
died, and raised a column on the spot, bearing the figure 
of a dragon, in token of his lineage from one of the heroes 
of the dragon's tooth. It was the tomb of their own 
greatness. They never prospered after the grand fifteen 
years of the influence of their great Pythagorean soldier. 



154 THE BOOK OF 



ALEXANDER. 
B.C. 356—323- 

The Worthy next to be spoken of is one whose transcendent 
achievements have raised him to the foremost place in the 
memory of the world. Probably more persons during the 
last two thousand years, both in the East and West, have 
heard of the fame of Alexander than of that of any other 
man, though in many cases without knowing any of his 
real exploits, and while making him the hero of a fabulous 
tale of wild, romantic wonders. 

Those forefathers of ours who placed him the second in 
their list of heathen Worthies had probably no very clear 
notion of his actual life ; and his errors were so great that 
his claim to be reckoned among them will be disputed by 
many. Not only, however, are we bound to dwell on the 
chosen name of old, but we think there were noble and 
peculiar elements of "worthiness" in Alexander, apart 
from his unrivalled prowess ; and that, if his faults were 
great, his virtues were also magnificent ; and both are 
seen by a more than wonted lustre, which brings into full 
display many flaws that no doubt existed in other cha- 
racters that seem more faultless, because less closely 
examined. 

We have seen how the admirable Epaminondas had 
raised his native state of Thebes to the leadership of 
Greece, and how when he fell at Mantinea he left not his 
like behind him. The power of Thebes fell with him* and 



WORTHIES. 



*55 



the old struggles between Athens and Sparta continued in 
full force ; but both cities seemed to be exhausted, and 
there was no warrior of mark among them to stay the 
progress of that northern kingdom which they had hitherto 
despised as barbarous. 

Macedon lies at the head of the ^Egean Sea, extending 
about halfway along the northern coast, and stretching 
as far as the Bermian mountains to the west. Mountains 
cut it off on the north from the savage Scythians, and 
on the south from the Thessalians, and the great three- 
fingered peninsula of Chalcidica gave it many admirable 
harbours. The people were bold, hardy mountaineers, 
who spoke a sort of Greek, but neither well-pronounced nor 
grammatical ; they had never been reckoned as members 
of the Greek federation, and in the " Iliad" they are shown 
as fighting on the side of Troy. After this, however, when 
the Greek cities were changing from kingdoms to repub- 
lics, a prince, who traced his descent from the demi-god 
Hercules, fled from Argos, and contrived to be made king 
of the barbarous Macedonians, who gradually became 
more civilized under the influence of his family and de- 
scendants, and began to build cities in their fine ports. 
The great desire of their kings was to be considered as 
free of the commonwealth of Greece, and to be allowed to 
contend in the Olympic games ; and when this at last was 
granted to them, it was because they proved their birth- 
right as citizens of Argos, not because they were kings of 
Macedon. 

This grant was made to Alexander II., whom we have 
seen obliged to serve in the Persian army, but still so 
entirely a Greek at heart that he came to warn Aristides 
before the battle of Platasas. His son was a man of taste 
and learning, and though a time succeeded full of fierce 
feuds and factions, the princes partook more and more of 
Greek culture. One of the young princes, named Philippos, 



156 THE BOOK OF 

or, as we call it, Philip, was sent to Thebes either as a 
pledge for the payment of a debt, or else was carried 
thither by Pelopidas, to secure him from his enemies at 
home. He was lodged in the house of the father of 
Epaminondas, and became infinitely impressed by the 
great example he saw in the noblest of the Thebans. It 
was not, however, the beautiful harmony of virtue that 
struck him in Epaminondas so much as his genius, both 
for war and government. He laid up many lessons for 
future use, not intending to employ them for the public 
good, like his model, but for his own advancement ; and, 
likewise, he had no intention of fettering himself by 
scruples as to justice or sincerity. 

In 360, two years before the battle of Mantinea, he 
heard of the death of his elder brother, and returning 
home obtained the kingdom. He so dealt with his people 
as to enable them to be both brave and educated enough 
to take advantage of the wasted condition of Greece. He 
disciplined his army to perfection, and improved the 
Greek fashion of drawing up the men into what was 
called the Macedonian phalanx. This was a body of 
heavily-armed foot-soldiers, each with a spear twenty-four 
feet long, and a heavy shield. In advancing, their shields 
could be carried so as to form an impenetrable wall, and 
when they stood in battle array, the ranks were so near 
together that each man in the foremost row had four 
spear-points projecting before him. There was a great 
purpose in Philip's mind. This tremendous phalanx was 
to make Macedon the leading power in Greece, and then 
all Greece was to be united, and to dash at the great foe in 
Asia. Xenophon and his 10,000 had probed the weakness 
of that enormous empire of slaves, and where bands of 
mercenaries, betrayed and headless, had come out un- 
scathed, a disciplined, well-led army would assuredly 
conquer. 



WORTHIES, 157 

In his own days, or his son's, the work might be done. 
The mother of that son was a beautiful, imperious woman, 
named Olympias, who was the daughter of the King of 
Epirus, and thus deduced her lineage from Pyrrhus, the 
only son of Achilles. She was an enthusiast in the wild 
worship of the wine-god, Dionysos, and the first time 
Philip saw her was at Samothrace, wreathed with ivy 
and vine, dancing fearlessly among great serpents, which 
twisted about the maidens' vine-crowned staves, in their 
golden baskets of figs, and even in the garlands on their 
hair. These orgies were lawless and almost frenzied, and 
they accorded so well with the passionate nature of the 
Epirot princess, that her ecstatic beauty so impressed Philip 
that he asked her in marriage so soon as he was estab- 
lished upon the throne. 

In 356 was born, at Pella, the son of this marriage, 
amid dreams and portents that were thought to mark his 
greatness. On the day of his birth the wonder of the 
world, the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, was burnt down; 
a great battle was won by Philip's general, Parmenio ; and 
a horse of his breeding won the race at the Olympic 
games. 

Philip is said to have at once written to Aristotle, the 
chief philosopher of his time, telling him that not only 
was he happy in having a son, but in the possibility 
of that son's having such a tutor as Aristotle. This 
great man was a Macedonian by birth, and acted for 
many years as the chief physician at court. He was 
a great student of nature, and a most powerful reasoner, 
working out a grand theory of thought and morals to 
be carried into practical life, and he was well pleased 
to have a young prince to bring up to be his model 
king. As Pythagoras thought harmony the key to the 
world and guide of man, and Socrates trusted to the 
guidance of the inner voice inspired by the Deity, so 



153 THE BOOK OF 

Aristotle believed in the rule of Law, and would have 
man subject himself completely to the laws of Virtue 
that conduced to perfection, and taught that there was 
one universal God, manifested in different forms in divers 
countries. 

He seems to have merely directed his pupil's education 
at first. His maxim was that for seven years the boy 
should be trained in body instead of mind, only guarded 
from all that might taint eye or ear ; kept from intercourse 
with vulgar obsequious slaves, made active by running, 
leaping, and climbing, and hardy by moderate diet, cold 
bathing, and light clothing. A noble lady, named Lanike, 
seems to have had the charge of Alexander at this time, 
and he remained all his life most warmly attached to her. 
Probably, too, this regimen had a great effect on his 
bodily frame, in diminishing the slight blemish with 
which he was born, namely, the neck being somewhat 
inclined towards the left shoulder ; but his grace and 
activity were such that this never interfered with his 
majestic appearance. Otherwise, although rather below 
the middle size, he was of perfectly symmetrical form 
and extremely beautiful features, fair and ruddy, and with 
exquisite melting eyes. 

A tutor named Lysimachus then took charge of him, 
and at once taught him the Homeric poems, to which the 
boy became so fervently attached that to the end of his 
life he carried a copy of the " Iliad " about with him, and 
loved to think of rivalling his ancestor, Achilles. His 
tutor used to call him by that glorious name, his father 
Peleus, and himself Phcenix. When Alexander was ten 
years old, some Athenian envoys came to Pella, and, 
after they had been banquetted, the prince was called on 
to play on the harp and sing some lyric poetry, and to go 
through a scene from a drama with another lad. The 
performance, however, did not come up to the code of 



WORTHIES. 159 

Athenian taste, and the visitors went away laughing at 
his incorrect accent. 

He was more successful when a few years after a horse 
was brought for sale to his father, most beautiful, but so 
spirited that no one dared to mount him. He was being 
led away as useless, when Alexander exclaimed, " What a 
pity to lose such a horse for want of courage and skill to 
manage him!" His father rebuked him for blaming 
persons older and wiser than himself. " I believe," said 
Alexander, " that I could deal with this horse better than 
any of you." 

His father consented to his trying, and he began by 
turning the creature's head gently to the sun, having per- 
ceived that his antics had been caused by fear of his own 
shadow, and then stroking and caressing him, as he held 
the reins, he gently dropped his own fluttering mantle, 
and vaulted on his back, sitting firm through all the fiery 
starts and rearings, but using neither whip nor spur, and 
gradually straitening the rein, till at last the creature 
obeyed perfectly his voice and heel. It was such a gallant 
exploit that Philip embraced him with tears of joy, and 
the horse, called Bucephalus, or the Bullhead, because he 
had a white mark like a bull's face, remained through life 
a favourite companion of his young master, the only 
person who could control him. 

Alexander was now thirteen, but he had shown himself 
so manly in his understanding and forbearance in this 
matter, that his father placed him under the immediate 
tuition of Aristotle three years earlier than the age fixed 
by that great man for the beginning of the course of 
philosophy. Alexander, whose heart was as great as his 
intellect, fervently loved and admired his master, and 
seems to have imbibed from him a largeness of views 
and power of doing justice to persons of different breeding 
from his own, which eminently fitted him for the task in 



ioo THE BOOK OF 

store for him ; also a deep and curious interest in all the 
wonders of nature. But Aristotle did not aim at making 
him either philosopher, poet, or scientific man, knowing 
well that though intelligent interest in all things is needful 
to a king, yet that his prime duty is to be practical. The 
one thing Aristotle did not teach his pupil was self-control ; 
but probably this was not the fault of the philosopher, 
but of the heathen's want of any principle strong enough 
to curb the fiery temper which Alexander had inherited 
from his mother Olympias, and the licentiousness and 
overweening ambition that he derived from his father. 

Already had he begun to understand Philip's views, 
and, while still a mere boy, would complain on hearing of 
a fresh city conquered, that his father would leave him 
nothing to do. At sixteen he was permitted to join an 
army which was to meet the Athenians and Thebans 
in a last desperate struggle for their liberty, to which 
Athens was constantly excited by her great orator, 
Demosthenes, the most eloquent of men. 

The place of battle was Chaeronea, on the borders of 
Bceotia, where 500 years after an old tree was still called 
Alexander's Oak, from the tradition that his tent had there 
been pitched. Philip commanded against the Athenians, 
and Alexander against the Thebans. At first the Athe- 
nians' spirited charge almost broke their enemies, but 
superior discipline was now on the Macedonian side, and 
Philip wore them out by his firm unflinching resistance ; 
while in the other wing Alexander gained a well-fought 
though not so difficult a victory over the Thebans, and 
entirely destroyed their Sacred Band. Chseronea, fought 
in the year B.C. 338, was the ruin of the independence of 
the Greeks, Athens and Thebes were too much shattered 
for further resistance, and Sparta alone refused to acknow- 
ledge the supremacy of the northern barbarian. 

Peace was made, and Alexander's spirit and wisdom 



WORTHIES. 161 

amazed the envoys of the cities, and must have proved 
to them that in his time there was little hope of their 
shaking off the yoke. The king was beginning to prepare 
for his second great object, the invasion of Persia, but 
his vices became his hindrance. The true high-bred 
Greeks were contented with one wife, kept indeed in a 
dull, decorous, inferior position, yet still their only spouse ; 
but the Macedonian princes were so much infected by 
Eastern licence as to take several wives, and Olympias, 
with her violent temper, her serpent dances, and domi- 
neering ways, had become so distasteful to him that, after 
the birth of a daughter, Cleopatra, he espoused several 
other women. Alexander, who was fervently attached to 
his mother, chafed in secret, until Philip actually deposed 
Olympias from her position as chief wife and queen, and 
placed his last favourite in her stead. 

At the marriage banquet, a relation of this lady, when 
half intoxicated, proposed to drink to the hope that she 
might bear a son to be heir to the throne, and this insult 
so enraged Alexander that he threw a goblet at the man, 
using fierce words that incensed his father, who leapt up, 
sword in hand, to chastise his son, but, between rage and 
wine, fell prostrate on the pavement. 

u See," said Alexander, " a man preparing to cross from 
Europe to Asia cannot step safely from one couch to 
another !" 

He then left the apartment, conducted his mother to 
her native home in Epirus, and went to Illyria ; but after 
some months, Philip, hearing that his son was arranging 
for a marriage he thought inferior, recalled him, but still 
kept him in a sort of disgrace, and surrounded himself 
with the kinsmen of the new queen, whose newborn son 
might thus become a dangerous rival. No justice could 
be procured by persons who suffered injuries from these 
men ; and when the aggrieved complained to Olympias, 
M 



1 62 THE BOOK OF 

she fiercely asked them why they did not revenge them- 
selves. Alexander himself, when told of these wicked 
acts and of the insulting demeanour of the young queen, 
could not refrain from quoting a terrible line from a 
Greek tragedy, where a forsaken wife vows to be re- 
venged 

" On husband, wife, and him who gave the bride.' ' 
Except for this quotation, Alexander was guiltless of what 
followed. His own sister, Cleopatra, was to be given in 
marriage to the King of Epirus, whom Philip hoped thus 
to detach from Alexander's interests, and in the height of 
the festivity, as Philip majestically entered the theatre 
in a white garment many paces before his guards, one of 
the offended persons dashed forward and thrust a sword 
through his body, then fled so rapidly that he would have 
escaped had not his foot been entangled in the vine stocks, 
so that the guards came up with him and cut him to pieces 
on the spot. Alexander was immediately conducted to the 
palace^and proclaimed king, when he stood forth before 
the people, and expressed his hopes that he should so 
govern, that they should feel that their king was changed 
only in name. He severely punished the conspirators, 
whom he believed to have been secretly instigated by 
the Persians, and with all his heart he took up the project 
of his father for attacking them in their seat of empire. 

He was only twenty years old, but his abilities 
were those of a man of much greater years, or, rather, 
such genius as his was no matter of age, and daring as 
were his exploits, they were never rash, for they never 
exceeded his powers. The first necessity was to leave 
everything secure behind him : moreover, his great desire, 
and one which was never accomplished, was to be 
heartily accepted by Greece as her champion : and at 
present terror alone could force the old republican states 
to endure the supremacy of Macedon. 



WORTHIES. 163 

He accordingly marched into Thessaly, where he was 
elected chief of the nation, and then went on to Ther- 
mopylae, where the Amphictyons were assembled, who 
accepted him as one of their number. At Corinth again 
he met deputies from all the little states, who, having no 
power of resistance, were forced to elect him Captain 
General of the Greek Confederation. All consented save 
the Spartans, who said it was their custom to lead and 
not to follow ; while the Athenians pretended to submit, 
but watched anxiously for an opportunity of shaking off 
the yoke. Then he turned northwards, to subdue the 
wild Thracians on the Danube and in the Haemus moun- 
tains. It was a dangerous expedition, which lasted four 
months ; and the Greeks, hearing nothing of him, fancied 
him slain, and encouraged the Thebans to proclaim their 
independence of the power of Macedon. 

No sooner did the news reach Alexander than he 
hurried back from Thrace, so speedily, that the first news 
his enemies had of his being alive was finding him 
among them at the head of an army. 

He offered favourable terms to the Thebans if they would 
submit, but they hoped for another Leuctra, and refused. 
He assaulted the city, and the battle was fought from 
street to street with a terrible slaughter : and still more 
dreadful was the vengeance. Alexander had been much 
exasperated, and was resolved to make an example. All 
the Thebans who were not connected by ties of hospitality 
with him or his father were sold into slavery, their city 
was pulled down, all save the temples, and the territory 
divided between two other Boeotian cities, one being 
Orchomenus, which had been so ill-treated by Thebes in 
the absence of Epaminondas. In after years, Alexander 
often regretted this dreadful act of severity, and as 
Thebes was the especial city of the wine-god, Dionysos, 
he viewed it as an effect of the vengeance of the deity 
M 2 



1 64 THE BOOK OF 

that any excess in wine was wont to blind him with 
ungovernable fury. 

Intimidated by the fate of Thebes, all Greece, except 
Sparta, again sent deputies to meet Alexander at Corinth, 
to accept his leadership and accede to his demands for 
the men, money, and stores each was to supply for that 
triumph over Asia that was to console them for the loss of 
their own freedom. Every one was subservient, with only 
one exception. This was Diogenes, a disciple of a pupil 
of Socrates, who had exaggerated all his master's lessons 
till he had made them into caricatures, so that Diogenes 
was called the Mad Socrates. Utter indifference to all the 
pomps, honours, or pleasures of earth, was professed by 
these men, who were called Cynics, either from their first 
place of teaching, or from Cyon, a dog, because of their 
currish habits, as they seldom washed, went about in rags, 
and slept in any wretched lair in the open streets. Dio- 
genes used to roll in burning sand in summer, and 
embrace marble statues in winter, and his dwelling-place 
was a huge earthenware tub that belonged to the temple 
of the Mother of the Gods at Corinth. All these extra- 
vagances were of course a protest against the over-refine- 
ment and elegance, the softness and polish, in which the 
Greek cities were losing their freedom and courage. 
Alexander was struck with the stories of the fearless and 
sharp sayings of Diogenes, now nearly eighty years of age, 
and went to see him. The old philosopher lay basking 
in the sunshine before his tub, and as he took no notice 
of the princely youth who stood before him, his visitor 
introduced himself : 

" I am Alexander the King." 

"And I am Diogenes the Cynic," was the answer, in a 
tone of perfect equality. 

Alexander then asked him questions about his system 
of philosophy, and heard his theory of the equality of the 



WORTHIES. 165 

souls of men, and his scorn of the body and its needs. 
There must have been a rugged greatness about the 
old man, which contrasted favourably with the supple 
complaisance of the Greek deputies, for Alexander was 
impressed, and, on taking leave, asked what he could do 
for the philosopher. 

u Only to stand out of my sunshine," was the famous 
answer ; and as Alexander complied, he said, " If I 
were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes." If he could 
not, as he hoped, master all earthly things, he would 
rather despise them than be mastered by them. Twelve 
years later Diogenes, then past ninety, was one morn- 
ing found dead in his tub, after having the night 
before supped on the raw leg of an ox ; and, strangely 
enough, it proved to be the very day of the death of 
Alexander. 

These years, which the old man had spent as one day 
in sunning himself and deriding the weakness of the 
world, had to the young man been the most wonderful 
ever spent by man on earth. All was now clear behind 
him for the fulfilment of his great scheme, one of the 
mightiest that ever entered a human brain, since his inten- 
tion was not merely to conquer the East, but to make that 
hitherto barbarous region no longer the abode of mere 
vulgar magnificence, savage luxury, and abject slavery, 
but intelligent, active, and free, even as Greece itself. 
There was much in the state of Persia to render the time 
suitable. That Artaxerxes II. who had hoped to destroy 
the Ten Thousand had died at ninety-four years old, 
B.C. 356, leaving 116 children. There were civil wars and 
revolts all through the reign of his successor, who was a 
ferocious and wicked man, in whom the direct line of 
Persian kings ended. He chose, as his successor, Codo- 
manus, the grandson of a brother of Artaxerxes II. and 
of Cyrus, a man of some reputation for courage and 



1 66 THE BOOK OF 

ability, and who came to the throne in 336, the same year 
as did Alexander. He took the royal name of Darius, by 
which he is always known in history. 

Since the Great Retreat, many Greeks had hired them- 
selves to fight in Persian wars, and Alexander had many 
opportunities of learning where lay the strength and 
weakness of the empire while he was spending the winter 
at ^Egae in preparations. The days when each Greek 
citizen was ready to fight the battles of his country were 
at an end. Men who had a taste for war learnt fighting 
as a trade, and took wages of those who remained at 
home, to fight in their stead ; and these formed themselves 
into bands of soldiers, who received payment from such 
cities as chose to hire them ; and were of course superior 
in skill and training to the citizen warrior, without having 
his loftier qualities. Alexander had 5,000 of these soldiers, 
and 7,000 collected from the Greek cities, but his main 
reliance was on his own Macedonians, who, always hardy 
and used to warfare with their Thracian neighbours, had 
been trained by Philip into the most efficient soldiers the 
world then contained. Of these there were 1 2,000 infantry, 
trained to act in the terrible phalanx of sixteen men deep, 
armed with the enormous spear : and there were also 
5,000 well-trained horsemen, for the Macedonians were 
excellent horsemen ; some heavily equipped, others more 
lightly, but all most formidable, from their arms and their 
address in using them. There was a body-guard of 
youths whom Philip had bred up in his court, lads of the 
best families, who had eaten at his own table, never were 
beaten except by his order, and were trained in learning 
and military discipline. These were always around Alex- 
ander, and were accustomed to live almost on terms of 
equality with him ; his chief friends were among these, 
and several of them imbibed something of his own 
wonderful genius. There were, besides, a number of 



WORTHIES. 167 

Thracian bowmen and slingers. But his whole army was 
only altogether 34,500 mien — a wonderfully small number 
with which to launch himself against an empire reaching 
from the Archipelago to the wilds of Tartary, from the 
Black Sea to the deserts of Africa ; and such had been 
the expenses of his outfit, and so large his gifts to his 
officers, that when he was asked what he had left for 
himself, he made answer, " My hopes." 

He left his kingdom under charge of his father's trusty 
counsellor, Antipater, and took leave of his mother and 
of his native country early in the spring of 334 — the home 
he was never to see again. He passed the Hellespont in 
April, steering his own vessel, and was the first to leap 
on the Asiatic shore ; after which he made his way to 
view the plain of Troy, which he looked upon as the first 
point of Greek enterprise in Asia. With a manuscript of 
the " Iliad," corrected by Aristotle, in his bosom, he went 
over the scenes so perfectly described by Homer; and 
lest Priam should bring evil upon him, as a descendant of 
Pyrrhus, he offered victims to the shade of the old king, 
and, with more enthusiasm, sacrificed and performed gym- 
nastic exercises at the mound that was said to cdntain the 
urn of his ancestor and model, Achilles. His dearest 
friend, Hephasstion, went through the same observances 
in honour of Patroclus. A temple of Pallas still stood on 
the site of Troy, and here Alexander, dedicating a suit of 
his own armour, took down one which was said to have 
been worn by one of the Grecian heroes of the " Iliad." 
The armour itself was probably too large for him, but 
the shield was always carried before him by one of his 
armour-bearers. He was told that the harp of Paris 
was preserved in a neighbouring city, but he said " he 
thought it not worth looking at, but he should be glad 
to have seen that of Achilles, which had resounded to 
songs of heroes." 



168 THE BOOK OF 

The ablest general in the Persian service was a Rhodian 
captain, named Memnon, but he was not the satrap ; and 
when he recommended starving out the enemy by burning 
and destroying everything before him, the Phrygian satrap 
Arsites declared that not a house in his government 
should be burnt ; nor would he listen to Memnon's other 
suggestion of sending an army to attack Macedonia, and 
thus force the invader to return. The Persian army con- 
sisted of an immense force of cavalry and 20,000 infantry, 
chiefly Greek hirelings, and with these the satraps of the 
provinces of Asia Minor resolved to contest the passage 
of the river Granicus, a mountain stream rising in Mount 
Ida, and flowing into the Black Sea. Alexander was well 
pleased at the prospect of a pitched battle, knowing that 
here Greek discipline always had the advantage ; but the 
troops were somewhat daunted, because they did not 
regard the month of June as a lucky one. However, he 
told them that they must consider it as a second May ; 
and when his father's experienced general, Parmenio. 
made the more reasonable objection that the banks of the 
river were steep, and that it was swollen by the melting 
snows, he said " he should disgrace the Hellespont did he 
fear the Granicus." He gave the command of the left wing 
to Parmenio, and put himself at the head of the right. 
Both armies stood on the opposite sides of the rushing 
stream in a pause of expectation ere the clash of arms 
should begin between the East and the West, every 
one gazing towards the young king, who was easily 
recognised by the white plume in his helmet and the 
glittering of his armour. He leapt upon his horse, and 
then spoke a few heart-stirring words to his men. 
calling on them to follow him and prove themselves 
good warriors. 

" Where's the coward that would not dare to fight for such a 
kiri£?" 



WORTHIES. 169 

In a slanting direction he led his wing down to the river, 
amid trumpet cries and battle hymns, and the whole army 
proceeded at the same time, trying to keep as much as 
possible in line ; but the struggle was desperate as they 
tried to climb the opposite bank, where the Persians stood 
firm, and the horsemen were jammed together in one 
struggling mass. Here it was the strength of the Mace- 
donian pike that prevailed, and forced back the enemy up 
the slope to the level ground above. Here there was still 
hard fighting ; Alexander broke his pike, and calling to 
his groom to give him another, was shown by the man 
that only a fragment remained to him also. Another offi- 
cer, however, handed the king one, with which he soon 
after slew two Persian nobles, and before he could draw it 
back from the corpse of the last he was saved from a 
deadly blow by Cleitus, the brother of his nurse Lanike. 
The light Persian javelins and scimitars were of little avail 
against the stout Greek armour ; and seeing this, the de- 
fenders broke and fled, without having killed more than 
115 Macedonians altogether. Their loss was not more 
than 1,000 slain and 2,000 prisoners, for Alexander forbade 
pursuit, and kept his army together. The Persians, in 
their terror, dispersed so entirely, that no army remained 
in Asia Minor to attempt any opposition, and Arsites 
killed himself in despair on recollecting his fatal interfer- 
ence with Memnon. 

Alexander buried the dead on either side with full 
honours, visited all his wounded, talking kindly to each 
man, and sent home 300 suits of Persian armour to be 
dedicated to Pallas Athene, in her Parthenon at Athens. 
All spoil or plunder he forbade ; he viewed the country as 
his own, and the inhabitants as his subjects : he only 
changed the governors of the provinces and cities from 
Persians to Greeks. Sardis, the rich and splendid purple- 
weaving, gold-hoarding city, where Croesus had been 



i/o THE BOOK OF 

warned by Solon and conquered by Cyrus, was surren- 
dered to him without a blow, though the citadel, built on 
a triangular rock, was wellnigh impregnable. The trea- 
sures he here found were of no small service in his 
onward march, which led him to another of those great 
cities whose names had so familiar a sound in Greek ears 
— Ephesus, the great Ionian city, whose glorious Temple 
to Artemis, the wonder of the world, had received Xeno- 
phon's votive offerings, and had perished by fire on 
Alexander's birthnight, only twenty-two years before. 
It was already partly rebuilt, and Alexander granted the 
whole tribute which had hitherto been paid to the Persian 
kings to carry it on ; and he caused the black and 
hideous statue, said to have fallen from heaven, to be 
carried at the head of a procession of himself and his 
troops. 

The first resistance he met was at Miletus. Memnon, 
who had fled there with many of his officers, had obtained 
authority from the King of Persia to carry on the war, and 
the Persian fleet was on its way, but did not come in time. 
Alexander was forced to besiege the town, and the capture 
cost him many men. 

On coining into Caria, the Greeks were reminded of 
that spirited Artemisia, the widowed queen, who had 
fought for Xerxes at Salamis, and whose tomb to her 
husband Mausolus was another of the seven wonders of 
the world. That tomb, after giving its name to all such 
monuments, now reposes in the British Museum, but then 
was doubtless in full splendour, and was duly gazed at by 
the Macedonians. Another widowed queen of the same 
family, named Ada, came to meet Alexander with com- 
plaints of having been expelled from her throne by her 
brother-in-law, and was restored by him. She adopted 
him as her son, and was called by him mother ; and her 
care for him was so great that, in dismay at his hardy and 



WORTHIES. 171 

simple habits, she sent him a rich banquet every day that 
he spent at her city of Alinda, and on his departure she 
offered him her best cooks and confectioners to provide 
his meals for the future. He thanked her, but said his 
tutor had supplied him with cooks far superior, namely, a 
march before daybreak as sauce for his dinner, and a light 
dinner as the relish for his supper. He said, too, that this 
same tutor was wont to turn over his baggage, lest his own 
mother Olympias should have put in too soft or luxurious 
a cloak or bed for him. 

Yet his strict habits did not make him forgetful of the 
enjoyment of others. All the young men in his army who 
had been married just before the campaign were sent home 
by him to spend the winter with their brides, and at the 
same time to excite their friends by the history of their 
victories, so as to return to him in the spring with nume- 
rous and willing comrades. Nor was he idle during their 
absence. He continued to take possession of cities, and, 
while relieving them of their obligations to the Persians, 
to gather them into the great Empire of the East that was 
his dream : and most willing was his reception. The old 
free Greeks of Athens, Sparta, or Thebes, might chafe 
at his yoke ; but to the colonies he was a deliverer — a 
native Greek lord was infinitely preferable to a barbaric 
Persian. 

And to the Greeks these Asian realms were a sort of 
living dreamland, the site of as many familiar legends, 
the home of as many heroes and poets, as Greece itself. 
PI ere was Phrygia, with its capital Gordium, respecting 
which a strange wild tale was current. A Phrygian 
peasant, it was said, was ploughing in his field, when an 
eagle flew down and settled on the yoke to which his oxen 
were fastened. Such a portent could not be neglected, 
and he therefore went to consult an oracle, and on his 
way met a young girl, who gave him advice as to the 



172 THE BOOK OF 

manner of conducting the sacrifice, and finally became 
his wife. Their infant son, Midas, was marked out as the 
wealthiest of mankind by the ants, which carried grains 
of corn to his mouth as he lay on the ground. He was 
grown to manhood when he and his parents set forth to 
the place of popular assembly in Phrygia in a cart, to 
which the eagle's yoke was attached by a complicated 
knot made of a with of cornel-tree. They were hailed by 
loud cries, that here was the King of Phrygia ; for an oracle 
had declared to the people that it was thus that their king 
should come to them ! Accordingly, Gordius and Midas 
reigned in the capital still called Gordium, and there it 
was, quoth tradition, that Midas won from the god Dio- 
nysos his imprudent wish that his touch should change 
all things to gold, and there, when hunger and thirst had 
brought him to beseech that the fatal gift should be 
removed, he wore the badge of his folly for ever in the 
long ears of an ass. The father and son had dedicated 
their waggon in the temple-keep of Gordium, and there 
it actually remained with the wonderful corn el -twisted 
knot, already many hundred years old. It was said that 
the oracle had declared that he w 7 ho could loose that knot 
should be Lord of Asia, and Alexander must needs fulfil 
the oracle. He ascended to the cell, and the knot was 
parted. Some say that in his impatience he hewed it 
through with his sword ; but a follower who wrote his 
history says that on pulling out the pin he detected the 
strands of the knot, and really unravelled it by skill : 
and, curiously enough, while the first story, giving rise 
to the proverb about cutting the Gordian knot, suits 
with the vulgar estimate of his character as a fierce, 
violent conqueror, the second is in accordance with 
the fact that he was really more acute and more per- 
severing than other men, and that no difficulty could 
baffle him. 



WORTHIES. 173 

Yet his career was wellnigh stopped by a foe against 
which man could do nothing. In the early spring of 333 he 
was again on the march, to turn as it were the corner 
between Asia Minor and Syria, where the Taurus moun- 
tains, with their many swift torrents cutting up the 
province of Cilicia, rendered the way so difficult and 
perilous, that the very weakest defence would seem 
capable of turning back an army at almost any point ; 
and as Memnon was known to be rallying his forces, 
it was his desire to hurry through these wild passes 
ere the Persian troops should be ready to assail him. 
A report reached him that the Persians were about to 
burn the city of Tarsus that he might find no harbour 
there, and he therefore dashed forward with his cavalry, 
over hill and through ravine, and coming down into the 
plain already parched by the glowing Levantine sun, 
hurried into the city in time to save it. He was heated, 
spent, wearied, and covered with dust, and before him 
rushed the clear crystal waters of the river Cydnus. 
He at once obeyed the impulse that led him to throw aside 
his garments and plunge into it. The stream was cold as 
ice, coming freshly from the melting snows of the Taurus 
hills above, and, in the exhausted condition of Alexan- 
der's frame, the shock of the chill was wellnigh fatal. 
A violent fever came on, and he was soon in the extremity 
of danger, which was increased by the Macedonian custom 
of putting the physician to death if his patient died under 
his hands, so that all hung back, unwilling to administer 
any strong remedy. At last one named Philippus under- 
took to give him a draught that might relieve him, but, just 
as it was ready, a letter was brought to him from his general, 
Parmenio, informing him that it was said that Philippus 
had been bribed by the Persians to poison him. When 
the physician entered, Alexander held out the letter to 
him with one hand, took the cup in the other, and drank 



174 THE BOOK OF 

the potion while Philippus read the letter. At first this 
confidence was hardly tested, for his sufferings increased, 
and fainting fits came on that seemed like death ; but at 
length the crisis passed, and he began to recover, though 
it was some time before his strength returned sufficiently 
to resume his inarch, and he was obliged to send Parmenio 
forward to secure the pass of the Issus to Syria. 

He himself turned westward along the coast as soon as 
he was capable of a slow movement, and visited the ruins 
of an ancient city, where the remnant of a royal statue 
existed with the hands in the act of being clapped together^ 
and an inscription in Assyrian characters, which the 
Greeks thus interpreted : — 

" Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes, built Anchialus 
and Tarsus in one day : 

" But thou, O stranger, eat, drink, and be merry ; 
All other pursuits of man are worth this," 

— i.e. the clap of the hands. The Greeks believed this to 
be the Sardanapalus of Nineveh they knew in their histo- 
ries as having adorned himself like a woman, and lived in 
the utmost luxury until his doom overtook him and he 
burnt himself, his wives, slaves, treasures, and palace, in 
one vast funeral pile. They looked at his inscription 
with contempt, as only fit for an Oriental insensible to 
true glory. Meantime, divisions detached from the main 
army had reduced the rest of Asia Minor, and at Soli 
the full conquest and the complete recovery of the con- 
queror were celebrated by games, by a procession of the 
army in honour of the physician-god Asclepius, and by a 
race with torches at night. 

But the victory was far from being yet achieved. The 
Persian monarch himself was advancing through Syria, 
dispirited indeed by the loss of Memnon, who died in 
the midst of his exertions, but greatly encouraged by 



WORTHIES. 



l 7S 



exaggerated accounts of Alexander's illness and of his 
subsequent slow westward march ; and thinking he had 
turned back to Greece, was determined to catch him in 
Cilicia and decide his fate ere he could escape. Darius' 
army included not only his own Immortal band of Persian 
cavalry, but a very formidable body of Greek infantry 
from Sparta and other cities, who were willing to side 
with the Great King out of their intense hatred to Mace- 
donian supremacy. 

The march of the Persians when the king himself was 
in presence was a magnificent procession. True wor- 
shippers of Mithras, or the Sun, they displayed a crystal 
disc to represent him over the monarch's tent, and never 
moved till sunrise, when a trumpet summoned them before 
the royal tent. 

Their order of march was as follows : — Silver altars, 
bearing the sacred fire, were borne first, followed by 
Magian priests singing hymns, and accompanied by a 
band of youths, one for each day in the year, and fol- 
lowed by the Chariot of the Sun, drawn by white horses. 
A horse dedicated to the Sun followed, led by white-robed 
attendants with golden rods, and ten more chariots com- 
pleted their sacred and mystical vanguard. 

Then came the cavalry from twelve nations, and the 
famous Immortal band, wearing robes covered with gold, 
and silver-handled lances. The king's own chariot was 
adorned with two statues representing War and Peace, 
with a golden eagle between them. The chariot was very 
high, and on it sat the Great King in a robe of purple 
striped with silver, and a mantle crusted with precious 
stones, representing two falcons pecking at each other, 
and on his head his tiara, encircled with a blue and white 
fillet. Guards of different ranks followed, and then came 
che chariots of his mother Sisygambis, his wife Statira, his 
two daughters and one son, three hundred and sixty 



176 THE BOOK OF 

inferior wives, and an immense troop of their guards and 
slaves, with no less than 600 mules and 300 camels to 
carry the baggage and treasure. 

Most of the treasure was left at Damascus with the 
families of the satraps, but Darius moved on in all his 
cumbrous state, while every one, even of the Greeks in 
the Persian army, thought that the Macedonians must 
be crushed, and at Athens there was rejoicing before- 
hand in their destruction. The host, hoping to catch 
Alexander in Cilicia, while yet enfeebled by his illness, 
came pouring over the passes of the Taurus into Cilicia 
by the road of Mount Amanus, and descended into 
the town of Issus ; but when there, they found that 
Alexander had in the meantime entered Syria by the 
western pass, and had only left behind him a few sick 
and wounded, on whom Codomanus took a cruel re- 
venge at the instigation of his grandees, killing some 
and cutting off the arms of others. So great was the 
alarm that Alexanders treasurer gave up all for lost, 
and fled back from Tarsus into Macedonia. 

The few who could escape from Issus fled eighteen miles 
onward to Alexander's army, and brought word that the 
Great King was behind him ! He could not believe it till 
he had sent a ship along the coast, whence the multitudes 
were easily to be seen ; and he then acted as promptly as 
ever. He marched back at the head of his troops to the 
narrow mountain-pass through which he had gone two 
days before, reached it at midnight, and, to his great 
relief, found that the enemy had not secured it. Going 
up the side of the mountain, he looked down on the 
country all ablaze with Persian watchfires, and after 
offering sacrifice to the tutelary deities, halted for rest, 
food, and daylight. 

At dawn he was moving again down the single narrow 
pass, where his men had to move between rocks in almost 



WORTHIES. 177 

single file ; and here was his greatest danger : but by and 
by it widened, and opened upon the seashore, so that he 
could extend his army in battle array, with the sea pro- 
tecting the left wing and the river Pinarus flowing between 
the two armies. 

The Persians, on learning that their enemy was turning 
back on them, drew up and prepared for the battle, in- 
tending to dispute the passage of the river ; but there 
were too many for the narrow ground, and only a small 
number could actually fight with the Macedonians. Darius 
himself mounted his chariot, and placed himself in the 
centre of his line, watching as the Greeks slowly moved 
towards the river, under a hail of arrows. Then, with a 
sudden change of movement, Alexander dashed forward 
at the head of his right wing, and, long before they ex- 
pected it, the Persians found him and his Macedonian 
pikes at their throats. They broke and fled, hotly pursued, 
and Darius in a panic turned his chariot, and fled head- 
long towards the Amanus pass. When the ground grew 
too rough for his chariot, he left it, and with it his robe, 
sword, and bow, mounted a horse, and never rested till 
he was on the other side of the Euphrates. 

Yet the deserted Persians and the Greek mercenaries 
behaved bravely, and there was hot fighting before they 
were driven from the field ; many Macedonians were 
killed, and Alexander himself received a gash in the thigh ; 
but he was not disabled, and hurried on in the pursuit, 
where there was so horrible a slaughter that he actually 
crossed a narrow ravine upon a ghastly bridge of dead 
bodies. In the evening he came back towards the camp 
of the Persians, and was led at once to the royal tents, 
which had been carefully guarded as his right. He took 
off his armour, and, smiling, said he would try the bath of 
Darius — a very different bath from his perilous one in the 
Cydnus. A spacious curtained hall, vessels of wrought 
N 



1 78 THE BOOK OF 

gold and silver, delicious odours, sweet unguents, vials, 
caskets, a thousand articles undreamt of in Greece, and 
a multitude of abject slaves, awaited him, and made him 
laugh as he said to his comrades, " So this is what it was 
to be a king ! " 

Having bathed and had his wound dressed, he sat 
down to make proof of a Persian supper ; but at that 
moment he heard a loud and mournful wailing close at 
hand, and asking the cause, was told that the royal robe 
of Darius had been brought to the captive princesses, 
and that they were lamenting the death of their lord. 
He immediately sent to inform them that Darius had 
escaped, and added that they should have no fears, for 
they should retain all their honours and titles. The next 
day he offered a visit to Sisygambis, the mother of 
Darius. The wife, Statira, he would not attempt to see, 
since he knew that the very sight of her would be an 
insult and injury to her husband ; nor did he wish to be 
tempted to make her his own by the sight or even the 
report of her beauty, whieh was said to excel that of any 
woman in Asia. 

The old princess Sisygambis beheld two simply-dressed 
and armed Greek gentlemen enter her tent side by side, 
looking much as any soldiers hired into the Persian force 
had looked in her eyes. Yet one of these must be the 
terrible warrior who had twice overthrown the hosts of 
the Eastern Empire, and at whose mercy they all lay. 
How would he treat her — an aged woman, who had known 
little gentleness or courtesy even from those who were 
nearest and closest to her ? She could only drop on her 
face at the feet of the tallest. 

But the tallest drew back, and her attendants hastily 
pointed to the lesser man, whose fair young face, so full 
of gentleness and pity, had seemed to her no visage for 
king or conqueror ; and he, stepping forward to raise her 



WORTHIES. 179 

from the ground, said gently, " Be not dismayed, mother ; 
for Hephasstion is Alexander's other self." Never had 
the poor old lady experienced the generous courtesy she 
met with from the stranger, and a relation almost of 
mother and son sprang up between them. He also was 
very kind to the young prince, whom he took in his arms, 
auguring that he would make a bolder warrior than his 
father. After this, Alexander attended the funeral ob- 
sequies of those he had lost in the battle, and caused the 
Persian officers to be buried according to the directions 
of the queen-mother, while three altars were raised 
on the banks of the Pinarus as tokens of thanks to the 
gods. 

As the Granicus had given Alexander Asia Minor, so 
the Issus gave him Syria, and his further march was but a 
taking possession. Darius sent an embassy to him full 
of complaints, and demanding the restoration of his 
family ; to which Alexander replied by a blunt and busi- 
nesslike letter, in which he went through the injuries his 
father had received from the Persians, declaring that he 
would reply to no communication that was not addressed 
to him as King of Asia, and that Darius could obtain 
nothing of him but by personal supplication. "If, how- 
ever," he concluded, "you still intend to dispute the 
dominion with me, fly no more, but stand and fight, for I 
will attack you wherever you may be." 

For the present, however, Darius was beyond the two 
great rivers, and Alexander was too wise to follow him 
thither till all to the west had been reduced. Syria was 
his ; but there still remained both Palestine and Egypt, 
which, having been won by Nebuchadnezzar, had followed 
the fortunes of the Empire of the East when the Lion of 
Daniel's vision had given place to the Ram. And now 
the He-goat, the ensign of Macedon, was forced to pause 
in his rushing course on the northern border of the moun- 
N 2 --._...--—.. 



180 THE BOOK OF 

tainous strip which held such indomitable tribes in its 
valleys and on its seaboard. 

The first whom he had to encounter were the Phoe- 
nicians, the tempters of Israel, and the merchants of the 
world. A cluster of small independent states, their cities 
lay with their backs against Mounts Carmel and Lebanon, 
and their faces to the sea, where their sailors roamed far 
and wide, and exchanged the riches of the East and 
West. 

Their religion— that of Baal, the sun god ; Moloch, the 
star to whom infants were burnt in the furnace ; Ash. 
taroth, the sensual queen of heaven — was a fierce and 
corrupt one, and their national character was at once 
courageous but treacherous, enterprising but luxurious. 
They were needed by the West as traders, but hated as 
men-stealers and deceivers. Their adhesion to the Per- 
sian Empire had been but loose : it had been limited to 
paying a tribute that had been but a slight burden on 
their wealth, and to sending their galleys to fight his 
battles by sea, when no doubt there were opportunities of 
plunder that made the expeditions welcome. Aware that 
in Alexander they should find a real master, they were 
less willing to submit to him; but their ships of war were 
absent with the Persian fleet, and so Sidon and the other 
cities submitted to him. Even the Tyrians, though they 
had once endured a thirteen years' siege from Nebu- 
chadnezzar, and had since raised their city in greater 
strength than ever, on an island half a mile from the 
shore, felt that they must own the power of Alexander as 
far as they had owned that of Darius, and sent him a 
golden chaplet and an oriental offer of doing all he should 
require of them. 

His requirement was to be admitted to march through 
the city in solemn procession with his army to pay his 
devotions at the shrine of Moloch, whom the Greeks 



WORTHIES. - 1 81 

chose to identify with the demigod Hercules, and who was 
thus claimed as an ancestor by the kings of Macedon ; 
but the Tyrians, knowing that if the Macedonian army 
were once within their walls a garrison would be left there 
for ever, made answer that Alexanders sacrifice to his 
forefather could be performed at an ancient temple on 
the mainland, but that they were resolved not to admit 
any Macedonian within their walls, as they had never 
admitted any Persian. 

So far were they from suspecting Moloch of any 
inclination to his soi-disant descendant, that they even 
set him to keep Apollo in order by chaining up to his 
image a little statue of the Greek god, which had been 
sent to them as the spoil of a city in Sicily. Alexander, 
on the other hand, related to his soldiers a dream of 
having been led by the hand by Hercules and placed 
within the city. Certainly the attempt to take it was 
a labour worthy of Hercules, for only in his spirit 
could a king with merely a land army have attempted 
to take an island city with the finest fleet then in 
existence. 

His first measure was to raise a mound so as to form 
a causeway across the strait between the isle and the 
mainland, obtaining piles from the forests of Mount 
Lebanon, driving them into the sand, and filling up the 
space between with stones and rubbish from the old 
deserted Tyre. The work prospered till the mound had 
advanced about half way across the strait, but there 
the bottom became much deeper, and, moreover, the 
workmen were within reach of missiles from the walls, 
whence they were assailed with stones, arrows, and 
darts bearing wisps of burning tow. Alexander erected 
two towers and hung their sides with wet hides ; but 
this protection did not avail them long, for the Tyrians 
towed a burning ship, filled with combustible materials, 



1 82 THE BOOK OF 

against the mound, set fire to the timbers, and totally 
destroyed it. 

Upon this the work was recommenced on a larger scale, 
so as to present a wider front to the enemy, and in the 
meantime he set forth on an expedition to chastise the 
robber tribes, who from time immemorial had infested 
the mountains of Northern Palestine. With him went 
the old tutor, Lysimachus, who had loved to call him 
Achilles and himself Phcenix. It was the depth of 
winter, and the snows of the Hermon mountains made 
the weather most bitter. Night came on while the 
party was still entangled in the rugged ground, where 
the robbers might start out of any bush. They were 
forced to dismount from their horses, and make their 
way on foot ; and by and by it was plain that the 
aged Lysimachus could not struggle on, and must soon 
sink from fatigue. His pupil called a halt, but the 
chill of the winter night threatened to be as fatal to 
the old man as fatigue would have been. All around 
were to be seen fires where the robbers were resting 
and refreshing themselves, and Alexander, springing up, 
dashed like the swift-footed Achilles himself towards 
the nearest of the watchfires, and flashing out of the 
darkness before the eyes of the amazed robbers, cut down 
two who attempted to resist him, snatched a burning log 
from the fire and bore it back to his own followers. A 
large pile was soon collected and kindled, and old Lysi- 
machus was safely cherished till morning. In eleven days 
air the robbers had submitted, and Alexander descended 
to Sidon* 

Winter had brought home the fleet to Sidon and the 
other Phoenician cities, and these were placed at the 
disposal of Alexander ; also from the island of Cyprus 
another fleet had come, which had probably been waiting 
to take part till he should prove to be successful : and 



WORTHIES. 183 

thus he reappeared before the walls of Tyre with a fleet 
of two hundred and twenty ships. 

Still the task was a fearful one, for the walls towards 
the strait were a hundred and twenty feet high, and there 
were two harbours full of shipping and defended with 
chain-cables. Alexander's machines came to the edge of 
the mound, his vessels attacked from the water ; but still 
the Tyrian defence was valiant, and the hot sand that was 
poured down on the Greeks, getting under their clothes, 
caused intolerable suffering. A great seafight, however, 
in which Alexander's galley was brought up at the decisive 
moment, destroyed most of the Tyrian fleet, and crippled 
the defence. Then there was a general assault, and after 
many hours of terrible hand-to-hand fighting the Greeks 
were masters of the great merchant city. There was a 
frightful slaughter, but the Phoenician allies saved many 
fugitives in their ships, and the king, with all who had 
taken refuge in the temple of Moloch, were spared. This 
was in the spring of 332. The siege had lasted five 
months, and Alexander was prouder of the achievement 
than of either of his pitched battles. 

Again Darius sent an embassy to him. It is said that, 
on hearing how scrupulously Alexander had respected the 
dignity of his family, he had prayed aloud that, if he were 
to lose Asia, Alexander might be his successor; and 
his proposals were, this time, that Alexander should reign 
over all to the west of the Euphrates, and marry one 
of his daughters. " I would take his offer if I were Alex- 
ander," said Parmenio. " So would I, if I were Parmenio," 
replied Alexander ; and this second proposal met with a 
still haughtier reply — Alexander could marry one of the 
daughters whenever he pleased, nor would he take a part 
where the whole, he said, belonged to him. 

On then he went along the coast to the country of the 
Philistines, those warlike foes who had so beset the land 



184 THE BOOK OF 

of Judah, but who had long lain quiet beneath the great 
Eastern dominion. Four out of the five cities readily 
submitted, but the fifth, Gaza, was governed by a high- 
spirited black eunuch, named Batis, who, against all hope, 
was resolved to hold out the city to the last, and called in 
a band of Arabians, who seconded the Philistine valour 
with all their native ferocity. 

During a sacrifice at the outset of the siege, a vulture, 
flying overhead, dropped a small stone on Alexander's 
shoulder, and the soothsayers thereupon predicted that 
the siege would be successful ; but that the king himself 
would not escape without injury. The augurs were more 
sanguine than the engineers, who had declared the place 
impregnable ; but Alexander set resolutely to work, raised 
a mound with great labour, battered the city with his 
mighty machines, and cast stones into it from his cata- 
pults. In the midst, however, a stone from the defenders 
struck him between the breastplate and shoulder-piece, 
and inflicted a very painful wound, the healing of which 
was tedious. During his recovery, he caused mines to be 
carried beneath the walls, and sent for further instruments 
of war from Tyre, and at last the assault was made. Full 
three times the attack was repulsed by the gallant Philis- 
tines and Arabs, and only at the fourth — led by a relative 
of Alexander — was the brave defence overcome, the garri- 
son all slain at their posts, and the governor Batis taken, 
still breathing, though severely wounded. Some narra- 
tives declare that Alexander, in imitation of his ancestor 
and example Achilles, pierced the ankles of the brave 
black while yet alive, and, putting thongs through them, 
dragged him round the walls ; but this would have been 
an act of barbarity beyond that of the Homeric Achilles, 
who dragged a senseless corpse round the pile of his 
friend; and, moreover, Alexander was still disabled by 
his wound, — so that, as the story is omitted by his best 



WORTHIES. 185 

and most correct biographer, we may believe that he could 
respect the unusual courage even of a negro slave. 

Gaza proved to be stored with quantities of balm and 
spice, ready probably for exportation, and the sight re- 
minded Alexander of an occasion when, in his boyhood, 
he had thrown handfuls of incense upon the sacrifice, and 
had been reprimanded by his stern and frugal old gover- 
nor Leonnatus. So he packed up bales on bales of myrrh 
and spice, and sent them to his old friend, with a playful 
note that now he begged of Leonnatus to be more liberal 
to the gods. 

Still another province remained to be subdued before 
Alexander could safely enter Egypt — a city, like Tyre, 
destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, and built up by its citizens 
with the sanction of Cyrus, after seventy years, and noted 
for the fierceness, constancy, and exclusiveness of the in- 
habitants, who had made their walls wellnigh impregnable, 
in the face of the utmost difficulties. Would their reli- 
gion, which was said to be bare, morose, and stern, lead 
them to a resistance as violent as that of Tyre and Gaza, 
which had between them detained Alexander nine months, 
and cost him the hardest fighting he ever encountered in 
his life ? 

Ready then for a fierce combat, Alexander marched up 
the rocky road to the city of Jerusalem on her precipitous 
hill. But, behold, as he came to the spot whence first the 
city could be discerned, he beheld a whole host pouring 
forth from it — not, however, armed. Not a sword was 
among them, all marched in measured procession, wear- 
ing flowing white robes bordered with a broad ribbon of 
blue, and led by white-turbaned priests with white scarfs 
crossed over raiment of blue and scarlet, with silver 
trumpets, harps, and other instruments in their hands, 
leading a sweet, measured chant that echoed back from 
the mountains ; while at their head walked a magnificent 



186 THE BOOK OF 

figure, with a long beard, garments of bright blue and 
scarlet, the border hung with golden bells and pomegra- 
nates, his bosom glittering with a breast-plate of gold and 
precious stones, and on his brow a glorious mitre of 
beaten gold, bearing the inscription, " Holiness unto the 
Lord." 

The Phoenicians in the army were ready to laugh this 
demonstration to scorn, and hoped to slake their vengeance 
in the sack of Jerusalem ; but Alexander, after watching 
this grand spectacle with ardent eyes, as it at length came 
near him, flung himself from his horse, fell on his face 
before the leader of the procession, and stretched out his 
hands in adoration. Then rising, he saluted the high 
priest, and was soon surrounded by the chief of his fol- 
lowers, whom he received courteously and respectfully. 

His officers could not believe their eyes, and Parmenio 
remonstrated with him on this prostration to the high 
priest of the Jews. " It was not to him," said Alexander, 
" but to the Name of God on his brow " — for no doubt he 
had become familiar enough with Phoenician characters to 
recognise the Holy Name on the mitre. He further added, 
that long ago, at Dium in Macedonia, when he was con- 
sidering of his expedition into Asia, he had in a dream 
beheld exactly such a majestic form, which bade him not 
hesitate, for he would lead him into Persia and deliver 
the empire over to him. 

Having thus explained himself, Alexander took the high 
priest Jaddua by the hand, and with him entered the 
sacred city, where he went up with him to the temple, to 
the outer court of the Gentiles, and worshipped while the 
priests offered sacrifices. Then Jaddua, returning with the 
rolls of prophecy, assured him that he was already ex- 
pected, and, unfolding his parchment volume, told him 
how a son of their ancient kings, who lived and died as 
both slave and prime minister in the palaces of Nebu- 



WORTHIES. 187 

chadnezzar and Cyrus, had seen in a vision a he-goat, 
the very ensign of Macedon, " come from the west on the 
face of the whole earth " — so swiftly as not to touch the 
ground — and smite the two-horned ram of the Medes and 
Persians, and stamp him even to the ground. Yea, and 
an angel had explained that rough goat to be the King of 
Grecia, and the great horn to be the first king. And there 
was another roll, the writing of one of the captives whom 
Cyrus had sent home, and who had kept up his country- 
men's courage in those hard days when their temple and 
city were being rebuilt. Had not he written that Tyre 
did build herself a stronghold, and heaped up silver as 
the dust, and fine gold as the mire of the streets, but that 
the Lord should cast her out, and smite her power in the 
sea, and she should be devoured with fire ; that Ashkelon 
should see it and fear, Gaza also should see it and be very 
sorrowful ? 

Was not this Alexander's own campaign ? And there 
was a promise, too, of safety for Jerusalem, which to 
Jaddua the high priest had been clenched — in the hour of 
distress and alarm on the tidings of the fall of Gaza — by 
an appearance by night, which bade him fearlessly open 
the gates, and go out to welcome the conqueror as one 
appointed by God for His work. But the oracles did not 
end there. They told, that when it waxed strong, the 
great horn should be broken. Alexander accepted the 
first part of the augury with gratitude. If he failed en- 
tirely to learn that the God whose Name he had bowed 
before was the only God in heaven and earth, the God 
who had raised him up to fulfil His own purposes, the 
God who had already declared how quickly the great horn 
should be broken, yet still he was impressed and touched 
by the grand purity he beheld ; and with all his greatness 
of soul he respected the Jewish people, and gladly ac- 
cepted a band of them to march with his armies. 



1 88 THE BOOK OF 

It was Alexander's desire to be regarded as the deliverer 
and friend of each nation that had been subjugated by 
the Persians, to adapt himself to their notions, restore 
their cherished laws, and then gradually to infuse into 
them that high-toned Greek spirit of philosophy and 
morality that should lift and ennoble them. Only at 
Jerusalem was it that he was mistaken in thinking what 
he brought superior to what he found ; and though partly 
from his own defects, partly from those of his subjects, 
and partly from the briefness of his career, his grand idea 
failed, yet he carried out enough of it to spread Greek 
culture and character throughout the Levant, and thus 
to be one of the chief agents — if not the chief of all — in 
smoothing the way for the spread of the Gospel. 

The gates of Egypt were unlocked when Judaea sub- 
mitted, and in the old kingdom of the Pharaohs the Per- 
sians were so much hated that Alexander was hailed, as 
he wished, as a rescuer. Unlike the Magians, who had 
loathed and insulted the quaint symbols of divinity wor- 
shipped by the Egyptians, Alexander nattered the inhabi- 
tants by adoring the bull Apis and all his animal train, 
and became instantly popular. The treasures of Egypt 
were immense, and the sight of that most wonderful and 
fertile country inspired him with the intention of rendering 
it as Graecized as he could in his usual manner, namely, 
by planting a colony to extend Greek civilization around 
it. The spot he chose was on the Delta of the Nile, a 
most commodious harbour, whence it would be easy to 
transport the wheat and fine linen of Egypt to the west, 
and to keep up the intimate connexion between the Greek 
settlers and the mother-country. He called the city, that 
was to be, Alexandria, and caused his engineers to trace 
the ground-plan before his eyes. Chalk not being at 
hand for the purpose, flour was used, and as fast as it 
was scattered was eaten up by flocks of wild seabirds, 



WORTHIES. 189 

which came up in multitudes at the sight. The augur 
immediately foretold that the new city should be a great 
mart, enjoying and dispersing a profusion of corn. Never 
has augury been more completely realized than in the 
mighty and wealthy Alexandria, which has for these 
twenty-two centuries remained, as the great founder fore- 
saw, the great point of contact between the East and 
West. Alexander filled it with a mixed population of 
Egyptians, Greeks, and Jews, the latter of whom he in- 
vited, with promises of special privileges, to settle there. 
Not small was the effect that Alexandria was destined 
to produce on the tone of thought among both Jews and 
Greeks. His taste for building, and the ample means at 
his disposal, made Alexander desirous of completing the 
Temple of Ephesus at his own sole expense, and inscrib- 
ing his name as the founder upon the portal ; but the 
Ephesians were too proud to allow their great national 
shrine to be turned to the glorification of one conqueror, 
and they politely answered that it did not become one 
deity to raise a temple to another. 

For that Alexander was a hero or demigod — such as 
belonged to the age of myths, and such as the Greeks 
deemed their ancestors— began really to be believed. 
Here he stood, at the age of twenty-four, the victor of the 
East, having accomplished deeds such as no man in 
the sober pages of Herodotus or Thucydides had ever 
achieved, but such as decked the names of Dionysos, 
Hercules, or Theseus. Was he not, indeed, another of 
that race of godlike men, born into later times, and not 
verily the son of Philip of Macedon, but of Zeus himself 
— like those great heroes of old ? The imagination crept 
into his heart, and he decided on an expedition to the 
most mysterious and inaccessible of oracles in order to 
satisfy his mind on this strange suspicion. 

On an oasis in the very midst of the Lybian desert 



190 THE BOOK OF 

there had stood from the most ancient times a temple to 
a ram-god, or god with a ram's head, called Ammon, with 
an oracle that was regarded as infallible. The Greek 
colony in Cyrene had spread the fame of this divinity, 
and the old legends of Perseus and of Hercules both 
represented them as seeking counsel at this wondrous 
shrine, which was supposed by the Greeks to belong to 
their own Zeus, and was thought of by them as a place 
of wonder and of dread. In historical times, the wild 
Persian Cambyses, the insulter of Egyptian gods, had set 
out to plunder the Temple of Ammon, but his army had 
perished by the way under whirling columns of sand. 
This of course enhanced the fame of Ammon, and in- 
creased Alexander's desire to visit the shrine. He set 
out with a small select band, and made his way thither, 
amid strange portents, that seemed to assure him of the 
special favour of the gods — wonders that are recorded by 
the most sober of the historians. 

Sudden showers spared the band from thirst in the 
sandy waste, a raven appeared at their utmost need and 
acted as their guide, and when the path had been lost in 
the drifting sand, two huge serpents came forth and 
crawled along direct for the oasis, a lovely island in the 
waste, about six miles across, and rich with laurels, myr- 
tles, and palms, among which rose the mysterious temple. 

As the Greek travellers approached, they saw gold 
glittering from among the trees — as it were a sun of rain- 
bow light, sparkling down on them. It was a symbol of 
the god — a disc encrusted with precious stones, and placed 
in an enormous golden ship, which was borne on the 
shoulders of eighty priests, and accompanied by dancing 
maidens, who sang a chant entreating the god to be pro- 
pitious. Alexander was conducted even to the innermost 
sanctuary, and there remained alone. He never disclosed 
what passed there, only saying that the answers to his 



WORTHIES. 191 

questions had been satisfactory. No doubt they were 
more pleasing oracles than those the high priest had 
shown him at Jerusalem ; in which it had been foretold 
that the great horn was to be broken in his might. These 
there can be little doubt added to the overweening pride 
that his wonderful course had already inspired ; and 
thenceforth began a certain inflation of tone, which 
marred the brave simplicity and hardihood of his earlier 
course. His whole conduct favoured the belief that 
Zeus Ammon had verily owned him for his offspring, and 
he accepted the flatteries that so hailed him. 

After arranging the government of Egypt, Alexander 
returned by sea to Tyre, in order to prepare for following 
Darius into the further East. He celebrated a great 
sacrifice and games in honour of Hercules — as he chose 
to call Moloch ; and, in the spring of 331, set forth with 
40,000 foot and 7,000 horse on the track, untrodden by 
any Greek, save as an exile, a captive, a slave, or a hired 
soldier of the Persian, whereas Alexander carried with 
him the captured family of the Great King. 

A body of troops were sent forward to throw a bridge 
over the Euphrates, hitherto the barrier of the East, at 
Thapsacus ; and the Persian guard retreating on the 
advance of the Greeks, the river was safely passed, and 
Alexander held on his way towards the north-west, where 
there was no great heat, no enemies, and plenty of provi- 
sions ; but the rugged ground, and the many streams that 
were to be crossed, made the journey so toilsome, that it 
occupied at least two months, and seems to have worn 
out and caused the death of Statira, the beautiful 
wife of Darius, whom Alexander had never chosen to 
behold. 

She died just as the invaders had crossed the Tigris, 
the foot-soldiers wading with the water up to their breasts 
and their shields held on high over their heads. On the 



192 THE BOOK OF 

other side, Darius was known to be waiting with "all people, 
nations, and languages " from the far East — the boldest of 
the Persians, the hardy mountaineers of the Caucasus 
and Himalayas, the fierce desert horsemen — all assem- 
bled to meet the enemy, who was seeking them in their 
very homes. To some, at least, the Great King was the 
native chief, not the foreign conqueror ; many were bold 
and dashing warriors, and this battle — with the rivers 
behind them — in the heart of the enemy's country — was, 
in truth, the most perilous that had yet been fought by 
the Greeks. 

Some hearts among them which were disposed to quail 
were much dismayed by an eclipse of the moon, which 
took place the night after the Tigris was crossed ; but the 
ingenious soothsayer contrived to assure them that the 
sun meant Macedon, and the moon Persia, and therefore 
that her darkness only boded good to the Greeks. 

For four days the army marched along the banks of the 
Tigris without seeing an enemy, but late in the afternoon 
of the fifth they came in sight of the Persian host, drawn 
up in battle array about four miles off, and extending as 
far as the eye could reach. 

It was so near night that Alexander resolved to defei 
the attack till morning, but he set everything in order, 
directing his generals, and exhorting his men, ere he 
went to rest in as much security as if his handful of 
men were not wellnigh enclosed within the multitude 
of foes all around. The varied cries and shouts, the 
clang of arms, trampling of horses and treading of feet, 
from the whole vast circuit, was like the ground swell 
of the ocean before a storm ; and Parmenio, becoming 
anxious, followed his king to his tent to recommend that, 
against such tremendous odds, a night attack should be 
the resource. All the answer he received was, " It would 
be base to steal a victory ; " and when in the morning he 



WORTHIES, 193 

brought word to the royal tent that the army were 
on the alert and all drawn up, he found Alexander fast 
asleep. 

" How can you sleep so calmly," he exclaimed, " with 
one of the greatest battles in the world before you ?" 

" How could we not be calm," replied Alexander, " since 
the enemy is coming to deliver himself into our hands ?" 

He then arrayed himself in a short tunic closely girt 
round him, and over it, not metal armour such as had 
been crushed into his shoulder at Gaza, but a breastplate 
of strongly-quilted linen, girt with a broad belt of leather, 
encrusted with massy gold figures of exquisite workman- 
ship, and sustaining a light sharp sword. His helmet was 
of polished steel, with a gorget of precious stones, and a 
white plume ; light greaves rose to his knees, a shield was 
on his left arm, and his long Macedonian spear in his 
right hand. And so he went forth, in all the alertness 
and vigour of his five and twenty years, to oppose Codo- 
manus, who, though not greatly his elder, was encum- 
bered with the trappings of oriental royalty, helpless from 
long custom, and enervated in spirit by his luxurious life. 

Two hundred chariots, armed with scythes, and fifteen 
trained elephants, protected the towering chariot of Darius 
in the centre of his army, and he talked grandly of charg- 
ing the Greeks in full front, and letting his wings close in 
on them at the same time, so as to squeeze them like an 
insect in the hand. 

Alexander, divining this intention, had instructed his 
troops to be ready to face about on whatever side they 
were attacked, and he likewise sent light-armed men in 
among the chariots, to cut the traces, and kill the horses, 
so as to make this covering cloud of no effect. He him- 
self, instead of spreading his main body to meet the Persian 
charge in full front, drew it up in a wedgelike shape, and 
pushed forward obliquely into the very heart of the Immor- 
O 



i 9 4 THE BOOK OF 

tal band as they charged, so that their order was broken ; 
they began to scatter, and he was on the verge of pouncing 
on Darius, when tidings came that the right Persian wing, 
brave mountain tribes, and horsemen of the desert, had 
broken the troops of Parmenio, and were threatening the 
camp. The Persian prisoners there were all in commo- 
tion, and hurrying to their queen-mother, Sisygambis, told 
her that their rescue had come, and she had only to fly to 
regain her freedom. But either she did not believe it, or 
Persian liberty was less sweet to her than Greek bondage, 
for she never stirred from her carpet, never spoke a word 
nor unclosed her lips, but apparently took no notice of 
the tidings. 

Alexander had already secured the victory by putting 
the Immortals and their king to flight, but he was forced 
to turn to Parmenio's assistance, and it was not without 
some hard fighting that these brave men were dispersed, 
and he was free to endeavour to overtake Darius, who had 
mounted a fleet mare, and was galloping away headlong 
towards the Armenian mountains. It was said that he 
refused to let the bridges be broken down behind him, 
lest his followers should thus be cut off from escape ; 
but such an act of consideration was scarcely like a 
Persian king. 

Alexander followed him forty miles, as far as Arbela, 
the city which gave name to the battle, where he arrived 
at midnight. The gates were shut, and he was forced to 
halt, but only to enter the next day, and find there the 
sword and bow of the royal fugitive. 

The battle of Arbela gave Alexander the very heart of 
the empire. Babylon was ready to surrender to him. 
Babylon, the centre of all ambition in the ancient world, 
as its name has been the proverb for the heights of worldly 
glory in the modern ; Babylon, the city of Nebuchadnezzar, 
the place of Daniel's visions, the pride of the East, the far- 



WORTHIES, 195 

off marvel of the West, was opening her gates to the Goat 
of Macedon! 

There, in the midst of her waters, surrounded by her 
massive walls, lifting up her terraced gardens, pointing 
aloft with her temple of Bel, she lay in majesty, tarnished 
indeed, but still unrivalled, and eager to own her con- 
queror. The streets were strewn with flowers, and bor- 
dered with silver altars steaming with perfumes, and the 
Chaldean priests came forth, in sumptuous procession, 
escorting splendid horses and cages of leopards and 
lions as presents to the conqueror. Alexander accepted 
them graciously, and was well pleased to converse with 
the Chaldeans, who had preserved the discoveries of 
the first astronomers in the world, who had given the 
names by which we still know the stars. The registers 
of their observations ranged back for 1903 years, and 
copies of them were a welcome treasure, which Alex- 
ander despatched to his old master, Aristotle. He also 
wondered at the naphtha which w T as collected from a 
cave near Babylon, and which, being dropped along a 
street, and then lighted at night, made a wonderful 
illumination. In a dried state this naphtha became* 
bitumen, and had cemented the walls of Babylon and 
the towering temple of Bel. Xerxes, the great foe of 
all worship save the Magian, had done his best to ruin 
this temple, but Alexander, who regarded all religions 
with a certain curiosity, interest, and respect, secured the 
hearts of the Chaldeans by decreeing that it should be 
restored by the hands of the inhabitants. Many of these 
were, however, Jews, and as they not only knew it to be 
an idol temple, but regarded it as the original Tower 
of Babel, they petitioned Alexander that they might be 
exempted from the work ; and he consented. He spent 
thirty days at Babylon, by way of giving his wearied men 
repose ; but he did not then begin to establish there a new 
O 2 



196 THE BOOK OF 

and mightier Empire of the East : he had other cities first 
to win and review. 

Susa came first: "Shushan the palace," where Daniel 
prayed on the banks of the Ulai, and where he lies buried ; 
where Esther had interceded for her people, and Nehemiah 
had borne the cup. Her palaces, with their marble pave- 
ments and incalculable stores of riches, the accumulated 
tribute-money of three centuries, were all surrendered to 
him ; and there, too, were found the trophies of Xerxes' 
invasion of Greece, the brazen statues of the two deli- 
verers of Athens, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, which he 
had carried from the Acropolis as tokens of his success. 
These, with many treasures, Alexander despatched to their 
home, trusting that at last Athens would feel that by him 
Greece was revenged. 

While at Susa, Alexander received letters from his home, 
and presents of garments, spun, woven, and worked by the 
loving hands of his mother and sisters. He took them to 
show to his captive, Sisygambis, and when she admired 
them, offered to have her grandchildren taught the same 
arts, but to his surprise she began to weep bitterly, and 
he found that to a Persian princess any employment 
seemed servile, so that she thought he was no longer 
going to treat her as a queen, but that a harsh slavery 
would be the lot of her family. He reassured her, and 
told her how Greek ladies deemed the loom the honour- 
able tribute of even a goddess, and how deeply he loved 
and esteemed the mother who had thus worked for him. 
He had indeed a most fond affection for Olympias — more 
perhaps than she deserved, though it was so great a grace 
in him. His regent, Antipater, had written many com- 
plaints of her haughty interference. " He knows not," said 
Alexander, "that one tear of a mother will blot out ten 
such letters." No doubt it was this strong reverence for 
his own mother that made him so filial towards his aged 



WORTHIES. 197 

captive, whom he now installed in her own palace at 
Susa, whilst he set forth on a severe winter campaign in 
the mountains. 

He had now to push into Fars, the original rocky nest 
of the once hardy Persians, and to make his way through 
tremendous defiles, where, but for his skill and the want of 
skill in his adversaries, his army could have been reduced 
to great straits. His object was Persepolis, the cradle of 
the Persian kings, and fuller of treasure than even Susa ; 
and he pushed on the faster because of a report that the 
inhabitants were about to pillage the treasure themselves. 
As he advanced to the stately city enclosed by precipitous 
rocks, carved in wedge-shaped characters with the boast- 
ful records of many a Persian prince, he was greeted by a 
miserable band of Greek captives, with noses, lips, hands, 
or feet cut off, and eyes thrust out, by command of the 
masters who had taken them from the cities of Asia 
Minor. To Greeks, who so highly esteemed the dignity 
of the body and who never tortured, the spectacle was 
abhorrent. The king burst into tears, and promised that 
he would send them to their homes with all the com- 
pensation possible ; but almost all declared that they 
should be ashamed to show themselves to their friends, 
and begged that he would rather assign them a mainte- 
nance in their present dwelling-place, which he did with 
the utmost readiness. 

The sight greatly embittered the spirit of Alexander. 
Hitherto he had treated the places he entered as cap- 
tive countries to be liberated from the Persian yoke, 
but already at Susa he had shown that he considered 
himself to be in an enemy's country, and Persepolis — 
the seat of the Magian religion and the Achaemenid 
dynasty — which had attacked the gods of Greece in their 
most sacred shrines, he deemed the right spot for retribu- 
tion ; and he therefore came to the resolution of giving it 



i 9 8 THE BOOK OF 

up to plunder. Parmenio interceded for the beautiful city, 
the storehouse of' the Persian kings, representing that he 
would be destroying his own property; but in vain. One 
story declares that it was at a banquet, when Alexander 
was inflamed with wine, and by the fierce battle songs of 

' ' Timotheus placed on high 
Among the tuneful choir," 

that he was worked up by the impassioned discourse of 
a beautiful Athenian lady, named Thais, to make another 
Troy of Persepolis, and himself to apply a torch to the 
palace, an example that was but too speedily followed. 
The burning, however, was soon stopped by his com- 
mand, but there was a terrible massacre of all the men ; 
the women were made slaves, and the private property 
shared by the ferocious soldiery, while a huge amount 
of royal treasure was secured for Alexander himself. 
It was one of the few savage actions that blot his 
memory, whether prompted by passion or by policy, 
whether he was carrying out the character of Neopto- 
lemus, revenging the wrongs of the Grecian name, re- 
warding his soldiers, or impressing terror upon the 
Eastern people, which last cause he assigned in a letter 
of his own. The other Greeks certainly felt all these 
impulses. A Corinthian shed tears at seeing him on the 
Persian throne, exclaiming, " What joy have those Greeks 
missed who have not seen Alexander on the throne ot 
Darius ! " 

Alexander, after visiting the tomb of Cyrus, pushed on 
in pursuit of Codomanus to the Median capital, Ecbatana ; 
but again he found that his prey had fled at his approach, 
and was gone northward into the mountains. Again 
Alexander set forth to hunt down his victim, but in the 
meantime despair and treason were doing their work 
among the troops of the miserable fugitive. Bessus, 



WORTHIES. 199 

satrap of Bactra, and his companions were resolved 
to wrest the command from the incapable hands of 
Darius, and, taking the leadership themselves, to make 
a desperate defence among their native hills ; and 
though the Greek mercenaries still remained faithful, 
their numbers were not sufficient to protect the king 
from being seized, bound with golden chains, and placed 
in a covered chariot. On hearing of this revolt, Alex- 
ander dashed on headlong with his fleetest horsemen, 
riding all night, only halting in the noonday heat, and 
then again hastening forward. The last twenty-five miles 
were across a desert without water, so as to meet the 
Persians, who were following the ordinary road around 
it. At daybreak he beheld the Persian army moving 
along like a confused crowd. He charged them, and 
there was a general flight. 

Presently there was a cry that Darius was taken, and 
Alexander flew to the spot. But it was only to find the 
unhappy monarch lying on the ground, pierced with 
javelins, speechless, if not already dead. 

" Deserted at his utmost need 
By those his former bounty fed ; 
On the bare earth exposed he lies, 
Without a friend to close his eyes. M 

Bessus and the others had tried to place him on a horse 
and take him with them in their flight ; but he had refused 
to go as a prisoner, and they, being resolved that Alexander 
should not have him alive to use his name against them, 
flung their darts at him, and abandoned them. A Mace- 
donian soldier had found him, given him some drink, and 
gathered up his faltering accents of gratitude to Alex- 
ander for his treatment of his family, of trust that the 
conqueror would avenge his murder — as the common 
cause of kings — and a hope that so great a man might be 
the sovereign of the world. He died almost as Alexander 



200 THE BOOK OF 

came up, and the Greek monarch could only testify his 
respect by throwing his own mantle over the body, which 
he caused to be embalmed, and sent to Sisygambis to be 
interred with royal pomp in the mighty sepulchre of the 
thirteen Achaemenid kings, whose race was utterly crushed, 
their very nation, as it were, extinguished for full six 
hundred years. 

The pursuit of Darius had been terribly exhausting ; 
many men and horses had sunk under the fatigue ; and 
when Alexander led his army to re^t in a place that the 
Greeks called the City of the Hundred Gates, he found 
that they imagined that, now Darius was dead, their work 
was done, and that they were already preparing to carry 
home their spoil and enjoy it in Greece. Such was far 
from their prince's purpose. He did not, like them, want 
to make Greece a spot whence to receive tribute, or 
else to plunder and punish the world. His idea was to 
make the world one great Greece, imbuing every place 
with all the best and noblest that it could receive from 
the land of Homer, Plato, and Aristotle; and to be himself, 
not the King of Macedon treading down the East, but the 
all-beneficent monarch of East and West alike, ruling, 
reforming, improving from the central home of greatness, 
power, and conquest, upon the mighty rivers of Assyria. 
It was the grandest and most nearly executed human 
dream that the world has seen. But he was obliged to 
exert all his eloquence and ascendency over his soldiers 
to retain them, for unwilling followers he would not have ; 
and he actually dismissed his Greek auxiliaries with pay, 
gifts, and honours, such as might tempt those at home to 
join him in their stead ; and though his Macedonians pro- 
fessed themselves ready to follow him to the ends of the 
earth, the numbers he retained only amounted to 20,000 
foot and 3,000 horse ; and he, therefore, necessarily must 
rule as Persian sovereign, and secure Eastern deference 



WORTHIES. 201 

by the appendages that the oriental mind deems essential 
to sovereignty. 

So he took the Eastern title, Shah-in-Shah, King of 
Kings, and the head that had hitherto been crowned only 
by its own majesty and heroic descent was encircled 
by the tiara, the simple Greek robe gave place to the 
sweeping garments of the oriental on all state occasions, 
and the Persians owned in him their half-divine sovereign. 
Even Artabazus, the faithful satrap, who had held by 
Codomanus to the last, now gave in his submission in 
his 95th year. His age and fidelity were so much 
honoured by Alexander, that when he accompanied the 
army, the king, though always by preference walking, 
would mount his horse, that the old man might not be 
ashamed to do so. 

But what impressed the Persians was hateful and ridi- 
culous to the Greeks, who saw in this assumption of royal 
trappings only ridiculous pride and vanity, and resented 
the distance at which their master's elevation placed them, 
when they were used to treat him only as the first among 
equals. Mischievous murmurs went about, and were in 
danger of ripening into a plot, when Alexander made an 
example, and a fearful one. Reports came to him that 
his father's old general, Parmenio, and his son, Philotas, 
were constantly speaking of him contemptuously as " the 
boy," and actually were guilty of forming a plot for his 
destruction. The tale was carried to him by malignant 
whispers, and it is not certain whether it was true or not, 
but Alexander acted at once upon it. Philotas alone was 
present in his camp, and he caused him to be arrested and 
tried before the soldiers, he himself acting as his accuser. 
Philotas was a proud, selfish, unpopular man, and the 
soldiers by acclamation condemned him to die, and would 
have stoned him at once ; but his testimony was needed 
to condemn his father, and he was carried away and put 



202 THE BOOK OF 

to the torture, superintended by Hephaestion and Cratinus, 
while Alexander was not too far off to hear his cries. He 
was made to say whatever his tormentors chose, and then 
slain, while messengers were sent to Ecbatana there to 
kill old Parmenio, and to bring his head to Alexander. 
It was a grievous affair : nor is it possible to say how 
stringent was the necessity, nor how far Alexander was 
justified in thus sacrificing his father's old friend ; whether 
there were really treason on the part of father and son, 
whether there were mere suspicion, or whether in the 
inflation of Eastern despotism he had become unable to 
brook Macedonian freedom of speech. 

It was Alexander's present object to complete his victory 
by hunting down and destroying Bessus, and for this pur- 
pose he had to penetrate into those wild and wintry regions 
around the Hindoo Koosh, which are now chiefly inhabited 
by Kurdish tribes, and have never been trodden by any 
other civilized conqueror. There were grievous sufferings 
from cold, and the difficulties of the march were impeded 
by the soldiers' solicitude about their baggage, which the 
plunder of Persepolis had rendered unwieldy. Seeing this, 
Alexander caused all, including his own, to be brought 
forward and burnt, thus recalling his men to a sense of 
the discipline they had forgotten. 

For two months in the depth of winter he was forced 
to halt at a place that must have been near Cabul, and 
then, in the spring of B.C. 329, struggled on through the 
snow to the banks of the river Oxus, which was half a 
mile broad, and so deep that he could only accomplish 
crossing it, after the fashion of the old Assyrians, on floats 
of hides inflated with air or stuffed with straw. This 
occupied five days, and the remnant of Bessus' army, on 
learning that this last barrier was passed, seized and im- 
prisoned their satrap just as he had done by Darius. 
Alexander therefore sent his general, Ptolemy, forwards, 



WORTHIES. 203 

and he soon returned with the miserable man, who was 
led into Alexander's presence naked and with a clog 
round his neck. He was sent away under the charge of 
a brother of Darius to suffer a punishment so cruel as to 
savour far too much of Eastern barbarity. 

Still the fierce population refused to submit, having 
never really known a master, though the seven fine towns 
in the delicious country around the Jaxartes were; consi- 
dered to be Persian, in contradistinction to the country of 
the wild Scythians or Tartars on the other side of the 
river. Alexander did not obtain possession of these 
without much severe fighting, and was twice wounded — 
by an arrow in the leg at Samarkand, and by a stone at 
Cyropolis, which, falling on the nape of his neck, con- 
fused his sight for several days. His mood at the time was 
fierce and bitter. An unfortunate Greek population, whose 
fathers had given up the treasures of the Temple of Apollo 
to Xerxes, and had been transplanted by him 150 years 
before, were all massacred by way of retribution, and 
the punishments that fell on a Persian province that 
endeavoured to revolt were terrible. He also entered on 
a war with the savage and independent Scythians, and 
had one sharp battle with them, in which he put them to 
flight ; but, in the heat of the pursuit, a draught from a 
brackish and unwholesome spring took such an effect 
on him that he was carried back to the camp more dead 
than alive, and becoming convinced that no good could 
be done by trying to reduce a houseless race in an inhos- 
pitable region, he accepted a species of submission from 
the Khan, and returned to Samarkand. He had been in 
an irritable and suspicious state, apparently, ever since the 
information that led to Parmenio's ruin, and at Samar- 
kand this temper broke out in a most lamentable manner. 
It was the feast-day of Dionysos, but Alexander chose to 
dedicate it to Castor and Pollux, and after the sacrifices 



204 THE BOOK OF 

held one of those " banquets of wine " which were a Persian 
custom, and into which he had fallen only too readily, 
forgetting the terrible degradation to which drunkenness 
had brought his father. His brain was also probably 
the more easily disturbed in consequence of the blow at 
Cyropolis, which had evidently produced concussion. His 
Macedonian officers partook of the general licence, and 
when his flatterers began to exalt him beyond the twin 
heroes of the day, and to talk of his divine parentage, 
Cleitus, his nurse's brother, burst out wrathfully in rebuke 
of their falsity and Alexander's boastfulness. " Listen to 
truth/' he said, " or else ask no freemen to join you, but 
surround yourself with slaves ! " 

These words enraged Alexander to such a pitch that 
he sprang up and felt for his dagger to slay Cleitus ; but 
the weapon had been removed, and he was withheld 
by Ptolemy and the others, while some strove to force 
Cleitus out of the room. But Cleitus was not to be 
kept back, and Alexander struggled furiously, declar- 
ing that he was chained like Darius and only the name 
of king left him, until he shook off the detaining hands, 
snatched a pike from a soldier, and laid Cleitus dead at 
his feet. 

Remorse followed the next moment. He had almost 
thrown himself on the point of the same lance at once, and, 
when withheld, flung himself into his chamber and gave 
way to an agony of lamentation and self-reproach, with- 
out tasting food for three days. His flatterers at last 
framed the plea for him that Dionysos had produced the 
frenzy in revenge for the neglect of his festival, and Alex- 
ander so far accepted it as to make grand sacrifices in 
honour of the wine-god. But there was much angry 
feeling among his attendants, and the Greek hatred to 
the observances exacted by Persian royalty was strongly 
kept up by a philosopher named Callisthenes, a pupil of 



WORTHIES, 205 

Aristotle, one of the learned men whom Alexander carried 
with him to study the sciences, learning, geography, and 
natural history of these new and strange climes. To 
Callisthenes, moreover, was entrusted the education of 
the young men who acted as pages to the king, supplied 
him with weapons in battle or in hunting, waited on him, 
and watched his bed by turns at night. Callisthenes was 
a proud man, who hated all forms of observance ; and 
when at the banquet Alexander sent his golden cup round 
among Persians and Greeks — after which each advanced 
in turn, bent to the ground, and then was kissed by the 
king — Callisthenes took the cup, but omitted the obei- 
sance. Hephsestion directed the king's attention to this 
lack of courtesy, and Alexander turned away, whereupon 
the philosopher contemptuously observed, " I go away 
the poorer by a kiss." 

A man of this independent temper naturally infused the 
like spirit into the young noblemen, who were already im- 
patient of the oriental abject habits of courtesy ; and there 
was much inclination to discontent and insubordination 
among the young pages. At Bactra, whither Alexander 
moved upon leaving Samarkand, he found himself near 
one of the huge parks or forests for wild beasts that 
the Persian princes had kept for hunting-grounds. 
There he found magnificent sport ; it was the very 
native home of lions, tigers, and wild beasts of all kinds, 
and Alexander himself had a single encounter with an 
enormous lion, whose fearful leap he received with the 
hunting-spear, so perfectly directed, and so steadily held, 
that the animal was instantly pierced to the heart. The 
Macedonians, however, were so dismayed at the fearfulness 
of the danger, that they decreed in council of war that the 
king should never hunt alone on foot again. In one of 
these chases, Hermolaus, one of the most apt pupils in 
Callisthenes' school of democratic independence, rushed 



2 o6 THE BOOK OF 

rudely before the king to give the finishing stroke to a 
wild boar; and the misdemeanour was punished by a 
flogging and the deprivation of his horse. It is not clear 
whether this were the ordinary chastisement of a pre- 
sumptuous boy, or a real outrage upon a free noble ; but 
to Hermolaus and some of his hot-blooded comrades it 
appeared to be an inexpiable offence, and they laid a plot 
for murdering their master in his sleep the first night all 
the conspirators were on guard together. That night, 
however, Alexander, acting on a mysterious warning sent 
through a Syrian witch, sat up till after the watch of pages 
w T as changed, and the next morning one of the lads, 
seized with terror and remorse, told his brother of the 
plot, and the brother carried it to Ptolemy, one of the 
chief officers. 

The unhappy youths were arrested and put to the 
torture, when they made full confession of their own 
intentions, Hermolaus even justifying them as a glorious 
mode of ridding the world of a tyrant ; but they declared 
no one else to have been aware of them, and expressly 
denied that Callisthenes had any complicity, persisting 
in this reply when brought out to be stoned by the whole 
army, by whom their sentence had been pronounced. 
The philosopher, however, was so fully regarded as having 
been the author of the mischief by his violent language 
that he was taken into custody, where one author says 
that he died, another that he was tortured and hanged. 
Aristotle had long ago warned him of the peril of un- 
guarded declamation by quoting the line— 

" Short date of life, my son, these words forebode." 

It is hard to judge Alexander in these matters, since 
nothing but the most visible greatness and authority will 
keep Eastern nations submissive, and any show of dis- 
respect from the Greeks would have been ruinous to him, 



WORTHIES. 207 

unless he had chosen to make them a dominant caste, 
which would have been cruel and unjust to the Persians. 

Thus had three years passed in securing Persia, and it 
was in B.C. 328 that, having decided against molesting 
the savage hordes of Scythians in the unknown North, 
he turned to explore, rather than subdue, a country ot 
almost fabulous fame to Western ears — of which even 
the Phoenician sailor and the Jewish merchant could 
scarcely speak — the wondrous land of India ; where a 
few wild myths spoke of the triumphal course of Diony- 
sos and Hercules, but which the conquering kings of 
Persia themselves had never attempted. 

That rugged band of mountains — interspersed with 
beauteous table-lands and valleys— which lies as a bar- 
rier between Persia and Hindostan, has been impene- 
trable to every victor save this greatest of all. The 
high-spirited and ferocious inhabitants have used all 
their advantages of ground, and have been free from 
the earliest ages. Neither from the north nor the south 
have any attacks been availing to subdue them, and the 
only passage ever forced through them was that of Alex- 
ander, whose name their tradition still holds in venera- 
tion. It was only through severe fighting, and terrible 
sufferings from snow, ice, and rugged roads, however, that 
the Greek army accomplished this unrivalled expedition — 
which we cannot trace, for want of the power of surveying 
the mountains ; and in the spring of 327 he came down 
through the long and dangerous Khyber Pass to the 
banks of the Indus. 

Here he found himself in a wonderful land, with litera- 
ture, art, and philosophy more ancient than even that of 
the Greeks, and not yet blighted by the foreign invasions 
of duller races. The religion of the country — derived 
from the same source as that of the Greeks — showed such 
analogies, that it was possible to imagine that he had 



2o8 THE BOOK OF 

really come on those traces of the conquests of Dionysos. 
He was, indeed, only on the outskirts of India, in what 
we now term the Punjaub, or land of five rivers ; but he 
had come into contact with true specimens of the grand 
old Hindoo race — dignified, refined, thoughtful, and brave 
without being aggressive. In especial was noted a king 
on the banks of the Jhelum, called by the Greeks Porus, 
and probably named Parusha (or the hero). He bravely 
disputed with Alexander the passage of the river, leading 
a large army, supported by a number of trained elephants. 
On one of these he rode, conspicuous by his noble stature, 
and the silver scales of his beautiful armour covering all 
save the right arm, which was kept free to strike. It was 
the best contested battle that Alexander had fought, and 
the victory was not decided till two o'clock in the after- 
noon, when two of Porus's sons had been killed and the 
king himself wounded in the shoulder. Alexander was 
anxious to save so brave a foe, and sent messenger after 
messenger, until at last one of his Indian allies persuaded 
the valiant old man to surrender. He was refreshed and 
rested, and then was led to the victor, when he advanced 
without bating a jot of his royal dignity, greeting Alex- 
ander, not as a suppliant, but as a brother monarch. 
There was a silence as these two grand specimens of the 
sons of the East and the West surveyed one another 
with dauntless eyes, and then Alexander asked whether 
his brother prince had any request to make. 

" None, save to be treated as a king," said Parusha. 

" That," said Alexander, " I shall do for my own sake. 
Is there nothing more you would ask ?" 

u All is included therein," said the Eastern hero. The 
two understood each other from that moment, and became 
fast friends ; Alexander not only restored Porus's kingdom, 
but enlarged its borders at the expense of more refractory 
princes ; in fact, he carved and cut and disposed of the 



WORTHIES. 209 

lands about him to such a degree, that the natives of the 
Punjaub still call a river that alters their landmarks by 
changing its course " an Alexander." He still fought his 
way, and drove away another Parusha, whom the Greeks 
termed Porus the Coward ; he defeated a wild tribe of 
Tartars, whom his people termed Cathaians ; and re- 
ceived the submission of thirty-five cities, all full of in- 
habitants. In the midst of them he founded two more, 
one of which he named Bucephaleia, in honour of his 
beloved steed, which died here in the midst of a battle, 
without a wound. Wherever Alexander had been, had 
been planted colonies of Greeks, so as to form the germ 
of a city, whence civilization might spread to the adjacent 
parts and communication be kept up with the mother- 
country. 

He soon found, however, that he was merely on the 
outskirts of the land of wonder. The Ganges, the sacred 
river of India, still lay far beyond, and there he was 
told of a city— supposed to be Patna— eight miles long, 
with five hundred and seventy towers and sixty-four gates, 
and full of riches of every description. No temples had 
he yet seen, and only two of the Brahmin Yogis, or ascetics, 
who must have put him much in mind of his old acquaint- 
ance Diogenes— for one refused all shelter from sun and 
rain, and the other took no repose but by leaning on his 
staff. He invited some others to show themselves, but 
they would not come ; and he only heard from his offi- 
cers of fifteen men, all naked, and immoveable in their 
positions. 

Everything excited his curiosity and drew him onward, 
but his men were daunted by the very expectations that 
allured him. Were they to be wanderers for ever, and 
never place their prizes in security, or amaze their friends 
at home with the narration of wonders such as Homer 
had never sung ? Nay, if they were to find a Porus in 
P 



210 THE BOOK OF 

every prince, they might never get back at all ! These 
Hindoos were more warlike than the Persians, and better 
disciplined than the mountain tribes ; and the Greeks 
were not stimulated by the chance of finding themselves 
equally matched. The rainy season, too, made them 
discontented and miserable ; and when they reached the 
banks of the Sutlej, they came to a resolution to place no 
more rivers between themselves and their home. 

Alexander, hearing that the camp was full of murmurs, 
assembled the officers and addressed them publicly. He 
reminded them of all they had done, assured them that 
they should soon reach the Eastern Ocean (which must 
perforce be the bound of their expedition), held out to 
them the hope of unrivalled fame, and promised ample 
rewards. 

He was met by a deep silence, which was only broken 
by the oldest of his generals, who represented to him how 
he had never carried unwilling troops with him before, 
represented the fatigues and trials his present soldiers had 
undergone, and their longing wish to see home once more, 
and himself recommended him to revisit his home and 
his mother, and then collect a fresh army, with which to 
carry his conquests to the utmost bounds of earth. Thus 
would he be showing the moderation in prosperity which 
was honourable above all things. 

This speech received the eager applause that Alexan- 
der's own had lacked. He was bitterly mortified and 
disappointed, and broke up the council abruptly. The 
next day he summoned it again, and declared that he 
should proceed, but only with those who followed him 
willingly ; the rest might go home, and say they had left 
Alexander in the midst of his enemies. 

This appeal produced no reaction of enthusiasm in his 
favour, though he shut himself up in his tent, and waited 
three days in hopes of a change in the minds of his 



WORTHIES. - 211 

followers. He then sacrificed, and the augurs pronounced 
the omens unfavourable to his advance, which gave him 
an excuse for yielding to the compulsion that for once his 
army had exercised on him. 

He assured the council that he would advance no fur- 
ther, and endured the rapture expressed by all the troops. 
It was in the summer of 326, in his thirtieth year, that 
Alexander was thus turned back, on the borders of the 
Sutlej, in his unrivalled career of conquest. He marked 
the spot by the erection of twelve towers, in the shape of 
altars, on which he offered mighty sacrifices, and then 
applied himself to prepare for his return, not through 
the mountain passes by which he had come, but by build- 
ing a fleet, in which to coast upwards, even to the mouth 
of the Euphrates. 

The river on which the ships were constructed was the 
Hydaspes, or, as we now call it, the Jhelum, which made 
its way down to the Indus through tracts of fine forests 
of fir, cedar, and pine. These had hitherto been the 
home of multitudes of monkeys and baboons ; and these 
creatures, collecting at the top of a hill, presented an 
appearance so like that of an army, that the Greeks were 
actually beginning to arm in their own defence, when the 
Indians explained the matter. 

While the ships were being built, Alexander made ex- 
peditions into the surrounding regions, and collected 
curiosities, both in animals and in native produce. One 
rajah brought him some of the still famous hunting dogs 
of Sindh, and another three hundred pounds' weight of 
wootz, or highly tempered steel ; a large number of ele- 
phants were likewise collected ; and he made acquaintance 
with that Indian plant which " instead of fruit produces 
wool, of which the Indians make their clothes." 

At last the fleet was ready. There were eighty vessels 
of war, and a great quantity of smaller craft which had 
P 2 



212 THE BOOK OF 

been collected from the natives. But a large portion of 
the army was still to go by land, a division marching 
along each bank of the river, while the ships, with Alex- 
ander on board, were to sail down in the middle. 

Belore he went, he installed Porus as king of seven 
nations and two thousand cities, and appointed his 
general, Philippus, satrap of the country west of the 
Indus. Then grand sacrifices were offered to Poseidon, 
and all the watery gods ; and, standing on the prow of his 
own ship, Alexander poured a libation from a golden 
cup to propitiate Hydaspes, the supposed river god of the 
Jhelum, invoking both him and his superior, the Indus. 
The trumpet sounded, and the entire fleet moved on to 
the sound of music, every oar sounding in time, and the 
rowers chanting to their strokes. The sight and sound 
were both magnificent, and crowds of natives rushed 
down to admire, and to give them good speed with songs 
and wild dances which the Greeks supposed that Dio- 
nysos had taught them. 

There are rapids where the Jhelum falls into the 
Chenab, and the ships had some difficulty in passing 
them. The lesser ships got through safely, but the larger 
vessels broke their oars, and two ran foul of one another, 
and sunk, with all their crews. 

Here, too, a hostile people was encountered. Two 
tribes, called the Malli and Oxydracae, tliough habitually 
at war, united against the invader, and Alexander landed 
with a division of his army to defeat them. He pursued 
the Malli to their city on the banks of the Hydraotes, or 
Ravee. The place still bears the name of Mooltan, and 
is curiously like what Alexander found it, being still a fort 
surrounded with a strong outer wall, inside which fruit 
trees may be seen growing. The king had actually pur- 
sued the flying army of the Malli across the river, there 
500 yards broad, and, after resting for a night, attacked 



WORTHIES. 213 

them in their stronghold. The garrison deserted the wall 
and rushed into the fort, while Alexander called loudly 
for scaling ladders, and seizing the first, placed it against 
the wall and hurried up. Others crowded after him, but 
the ladder broke, and he stood on the top of the wall, 
conspicuous from his armour, entirely alone, and a mark 
for every weapon the enemy could aim at him. His 
guards stretched out their arms to entreat him to leap 
back to them, but, scorning this as like flight, he sprang 
down within the wall among the enemy, who fell back for 
a moment in sheer amazement ; but finding that he was 
absolutely alone, they rallied, and rushed like hounds on 
a lion at bay. He set his back against the wall, under a 
fig-tree, and slew the foremost assailant with his sword, 
driving back the others with large stones, so that, afraid 
to approach, they formed a semicircle, and shot at him 
with huge barbed arrows from bows six feet long. Three 
more men had, when the ladder broke, been near enough 
to the top to cling to it, and climb up after a long struggle ; 
and these now jumped down by him, and fought in front 
of him : but one dropped almost immediately with an 
arrow piercing his brow, and the next moment another of 
these deadly weapons was quivering in Alexander's breast. 
For some minutes he did not give way, but fought on 
until pain and loss of blood so overpowered him that he 
sunk down in a kneeling posture, his forehead on the rim 
of his shield so as to shelter himself behind it, while his 
officers held their shields over him, regardless of the 
wounds they themselves received. 

The Macedonians, maddened by losing sight of their 
king, were scrambling up the wall, driving pegs in, climb- 
ing on each other's shoulders, breaking through the bolts 
of a little gate ; but when at last they rushed in, they found 
Alexander lying as one dead, and his brave friends well 
nigh exhausted. Believing him slain, the furious troops 



214 THE BOOK OF 

burst into the little fort, and slaughtered every living 
thing they found there, while his friends lifted up the un- 
conscious king, laid him on the Grecian's rightful bier, 
his own broad shield, and carried him to his tent. On 
the way he gave signs of life, and when the long shaft 
of the arrow was cut off, and it was found that the point 
was firmly fixed in his breast bone, he was so much him- 
self as to call his friend Perdiccas to cut a gash suffi- 
cient to allow the barbs of the arrow to pass before with- 
drawing it. And his power of will was such that he 
endured this operation in perfect stillness, allowing no 
one to hold him; but by the time it was completed he 
had again fallen into a swoon, and for many hours lay 
between life and death, while the whole evening and night 
the soldiers watched under arms, and in deep silence, 
refusing to stir until at length they heard that he had 
fallen into a quiet sleep. 

He was in great danger. The wound had touched his 
lungs, and he continued unable to bear any motion for a 
whole week ; while in the meantime the main body of his 
army, believing him dead, gave way to constant sighs and 
lamentations, both for his loss and their own fate, and the 
Indian tribes, believing the same report, were preparing 
to rise. 

Alexander could afford to waste no more time on a 
sick bed, and therefore caused himself to be carried on 
board a galley, and lay there under an awning as the 
vessel sailed down the Ravee to the camp on the Chenab. 
At first sight the Macedonians there deemed the prostrate 
figure was their king's corpse ; and when he sat up and 
waved his hand to them, the whole air rang with shouts 
of delight mingled with sobs of joy. A litter was brought 
to the landing place, but, invigorated by the joy of his 
welcome, he asked for his horse and rode slowly through 
the crowd, who ran together in ecstasy to make sure that 



WORTHIES. 215 

he was among them again. When he came near his 
tent, he desired to be lifted down, and walked, leaning on 
his two nearest friends, who, with all their gladness at his 
recovery, could not help reprimanding him with all their 
old friendly freedom for having so recklessly exposed the 
life which was safety to all. One old Boeotian, however, 
said, " O Alexander ! deeds show the man," and quoted 
the line — 

" He who strikes must also bleed. " 

Alexander smiled, as well pleased with these words as 
with the fervent cries of joy, invocations of blessings, and 
the wreaths and garlands that the common soldiers were 
lavishing on him. He still was obliged to give himself 
rest for many days to come; and these were employed 
in the construction of fresh ships from the woods around, 
where the Greeks wondered at a banyan-tree, beneath 
which fifty horsemen could take shelter at the same 
time. Meantime he sent out parties to secure the sub- 
mission of the country round, and having nearly re- 
covered, he again set forth and reached first the Indus 
itself, and then the city now called Hyderabad, but which 
the Greeks found to be called Patala, a name which 
they considered to mean the same as Delta, this being 
the spot where the delta of the Indus does in fact com- 
mence. Here he seems to have established another 
merchant city like that which already bore his name in 
the Delta of Egypt; and in the meantime he set out to 
survey the Indus, and follow its course down to the sea. 
After having gone beside these utterly unknown banks for 
about sixty miles, the welcome smell of sea air was recog- 
nised by the Greek sailors, and Alexander sprang up with 
all the joy of a successful explorer, and in due time he 
actually beheld the open sea of the Indian Ocean, from 
an estuary twelve miles broad. His delight was extreme ; 



216 THE BOOK OF 

the broad fresh salt waves were dear to the Grecian soul, 
and this moreover was an ocean absolutely new to ail the 
European world. Strange, too, it was and perilous, to 
men accustomed to the tideless Mediterranean, for the 
waves were coming in with such force that the little 
vessels had to take refuge in a creek, where the next 
morning they found themselves high and dry, but the 
water returning upon them from a distance in the same 
wonderful manner. 

Alexander remained for two or three days studying the 
marvels of the coast, and offered the sacrifice of a bull 
to Poseidon, accompanied not only by libations of wine, 
but by the cups and bowls whence these were poured. 
Then returning to Patala, he arranged for his march. 
His ships, under a Cretan commander, Nearchus, were 
to sail along the coast, while he himself at the head of 
his land army was to force a passage inland, since, from 
the small size of the ships and the imperfect state of 
navigation, it would have been impossible for them to 
proceed without continually repairing to the shore ; and 
thus secure landing places must be provided, and wells 
dug where springs were not on the surface, — setting out 
two months beforehand. 

This expedition of Alexander is perfectly unparalleled 
in classic times. No other Greek or Roman seems to 
have had his curiosity respecting unknown climes ; and 
the journeys of the early discoverers in America, half 
explorers, half victors, are the only things like it in 
history. But, alas ! the pupil of Aristotle was a more 
beneficent and less greedy conqueror than were Cortes 
and Pizarro. 

The desert of Gedrosia, or Makran, which lay first in 
his way, has scarcely been trodden since his time. It 
lies between the mouths of the Indus and the Persian 
Gulf, and even to the present day only the northern 



WORTHIES. 217 

portion is considered passable, and that not without 
great difficulty. Of the part which Alexander crossed 
we have no modern account. He found it overgrown 
with aromatic herbs and shrubs, which diffused a pleasant 
odour when trodden upon ; but there were also poisonous 
bushes like laurels, the taste of whose leaves killed the 
cattle, and some species of Euphorbia, with a milky 
juice that if spurted into the eye caused blindness. 
Many dangerous serpents lurked in this scant vegetation, 
the wells were few and far between, and the sun was 
burning. The whole sea border was encumbered with 
such rugged rocks that Alexander was forced to keep far 
inland, led by a few guides who professed to know the 
way. He sent a small party down to the shore to see 
what provision there was for the fleet, and they reported 
that they found nothing but desolation. There were 
indeed a few miserable fishermen on the coast, but they 
lived on nothing but fish, drank brackish water from 
holes scraped in the sand, and built their hovels of shells 
and sand, with roofs of fishbone rafters. 

Alexander meantime had halted at a more fertile spot 
in the desert, and on hearing this report he sent a 
convoy of provisions to the shore ; but the men lost their 
way, and were obliged to consume what they brought. A 
second, however, met with better success ; but it was a 
perilous thing for the land army to part with their stores 
in this rainless region of shifting sand, which hung in 
masses like wreaths of driven snow, and soon became 
utterly impassable for the wheeled carriages. The men 
could hardly stagger through them, and the heat and 
thirst were intolerable. A few brackish springs there 
were, and these were the halting places. Around them 
the panting host would rest till the heat of the day was 
over, and then proceed by night, not stopping again 
until another pool was reached, even if they had to march 



218 THE BOOK OF 

on in the fearful noontide heat. Numbers dropped from 
sleep or faintness, and rose no more ; and many more 
paused to kill the beasts of burthen they were driving 
and devour them, — and the sick or helpless were thus 
utterly lost. When water was reported to be near, there 
was a general maddened dash forwards to it, and often 
into it ; and these hasty and excessive draughts led to 
so many deaths that Alexander was forced to cause his 
scouts to keep the discovery of water a secret from the 
army, which he halted out of sight of it, and then had it 
served out by trusty officers. He could not be severe 
on these breaches of discipline, but he shared the pri- 
vations of his soldiers to the utmost, and when once — 
in the terrible heat of a noonday sun — a little water, 
found with great difficulty, was brought him in a helmet 
as he plodded through the scorching sand, parched with 
thirst, he thanked the bringer with all his heart, and then, 
in the sight of all, poured the whole away into the sands, 
as being resolved not to take to himself what all could 
not share. And in the midst of their two months of 
misery from thirst they were one night almost drowned, 
for they encamped in the stony bare wady, or valley, of an 
exhausted torrent ; and a sudden tempest somewhere in 
the mountains above so swelled it that the floods, rush- 
ing violently down, bore away almost all the remaining 
animals, drowned many women and children, carried off 
Alexander's own equipage, and reduced many who had 
almost died of thirst in the evening to swim for their lives 
before morning. 

Whispers went about the host that Cyrus had once tried 
this march, and had appeared at the end with only seven 
men; and alarm came to the utmost when the guides 
declared themselves to have entirely lost their way — the 
shifting sand-heaps to which they had trusted as land- 
marks had changed their form, and they had no concep- 



WORTHIES. 219 

tion either of the onward route, or where there was any 
likelihood of finding water. The Macedonian army would 
assuredly have left their bones to whiten the desert, or to 
form houses for the fish-eaters of the coast, had they not 
had a veritably great man at their head. Aware that the 
coast must be to the southward, and able to guide his 
course by the sun and stars, he took with him a party 
of horsemen, and set forth to find his way to the coast ; 
but such were the sufferings of this exploration that only 
five were with him when at length the sea greeted his 
eyes. He dug into the sandy beach, and at once came 
upon pure fresh water. He sent back for the rest of the 
army, and for seven days was himself their pioneer along 
the beach, until the guides came to a spot which they 
recognised, and brought the much diminished army after 
this dreadful march of sixty days to Para, the capital of 
Gedrosia, which appears to be the modern Bunpore. 

Gedrosia was part of the Persian empire, and no 
more really severe difficulties remained in his way to 
Kerman or Caramania, which he entered as much after 
the fashion of the triumphal procession of Dionysos as 
could be contrived by splendid chariots adorned with 
Indian hangings and boughs of trees, and likewise by 
the continued revelry of the soldiers, to whom universal 
licence was permitted, to make up for their past miseries. 
Still there was, much uneasiness respecting the fleet : but 
soon after he had resumed his march, he was told that 
Nearchus and five men were arrived ; and they were 
brought to him, pale, lean, and so like ghosts, that 
every one supposed them to be the sole survivors out 
of all the crews, and the king even began to condole 
with the commander, when Nearchus exclaimed, " Thanks 
to the gods, O king ! your fleet is not lost." It was 
safely moored at the isle of Ormuz, where Nearchus had 
heard a report of Alexander's being within a few days' 



220 THE BOOK OF 

journey, and had hurried up to report himself. He had 
a strange tale to tell of the perils he had run from star- 
vation, and the mutinies it led to, as well as from whales, 
or more probably sharks and sepias, and even from the 
enchantments of a wonderful island ; and Alexander was 
so excited by it as to plan finishing his next intended 
expedition to India by trying to find the way round far 
to the south, and to return to the Mediterranean by the 
pillars of Hercules— the voyage sketched out by Greek 
fancy as having been made in his latter days by Ulysses. 
Meantime he wished Nearchus to remain with him and 
rest from his anxious toils, while some one else conducted 
the fleet to the Persian Gulf; but the Cretan, a sailor 
to the backbone, would not relinquish the glory of his 
voyage of discovery. He afterwards wrote an account 
of it, which underwent the usual fate of travellers' wonders, 
and was derided as incredible by stay-at-home Greeks. 

Alexander sent Hephaestion to march along the shore 
to provide for the security of the fleet, since there was 
now no further difficulty in that quarter, and his own 
presence was required at Persepolis, where the Persian 
satrap left in charge had been incapable or unfaithful, 
and the Macedonians had been insubordinate. More- 
over, the great tomb of Cyrus, which had been only reve- 
rently visited by the king himself, had been broken up 
and plundered. Severe executions followed, the more 
distasteful to the army because they believed the king 
to be influenced by Bagoas, the eunuch, who had been 
in favour with Darius ; and when the new satrap, Peu- 
kestes, one of the three who had saved Alexander's life 
at Mooltan, adopted Persian state and ornaments, they 
looked on in contempt at what they believed to be either 
personal vanity or servility to the king, as usual not under- 
standing that, in the East, a little outward show might 
save a great deal of bloodshed. It was a time when 



WORTHIES. 221 

Alexander was forced to be very severe. Many of the 
governors he had left had reckoned on his perishing in 
India, and had plundered the treasuries and the people 
in fancied security, and the Greeks he had left in charge 
at Ecbatana had actually gone off with the gold to 
excite Sparta and Athens to revolt. Heavy punishments 
of course followed, alike to Greek and Persian, and in 
like manner rewards were impartially distributed among 
both nations, and to amalgamate them more completely 
he held an enormous wedding feast at " Shusan the 
palace," amid Ahasuerus' hangings and pavements, when 
eighty Greek nobles married eighty Persian and Median 
ladies. 

Alexander himself married Statira, the eldest daughter 
of Darius, and gave her sister to Hephasstion, saying he 
wished their children to be as nearly allied in blood as 
themselves in friendship ; and each of the other great 
officers found a bride among the satraps' daughters. 
The Persian laws required all marriages to be solem- 
nized in the spring, and it was in the beginning of 
the year 324 that this great ceremony took place. 
Eighty double seats were placed in one great hall, 
where the eighty bridegrooms feasted ; then the eighty 
brides entered, wearing jewelled turbans, beneath which 
streamed their long locks, wide linen drawers, silken 
tunics with long trains, and broad flounced belts set 
with jewels. Alexander advanced and took his princess 
by the hand. Each of his officers followed his example, 
led his lady to her seat, kissed her, and placed her upon 
it. This was the whole Persian nuptial ceremony ; but to 
this the Macedonian rite was added, by which the hus- 
band took a loaf of bread, cut it in two, gave half to 
the wife, then poured out a libation of wine, and ate and 
drank with her. However, the bridal was celebrated 
by five days of festivity, with recitals by the poets. Every 



222 THE BOOK OF 

bride received a marriage portion from the king, and 
every soldier who would take a Persian wife a donation ; 
and the Persian ladies were so beautiful and lively that 
the Greek contempt for "barbarian women" might well 
be overcome. Of the marriages whose history can be 
traced, some ended tragically, others were very happy ; 
but the difficulties of blending Macedonians and Persians 
continued to increase. A large number of young Persians 
had by the king's command been trained up in Greek 
discipline and in the use of Greek arms, and these were 
now ready for sendee, to the great annoyance of the jealous 
veterans ; and when soon after Alexander offered to dis- 
charge all his original warriors, who had become disabled 
by age, wounds, or sickness, there was an absolute mutiny, 
the whole army cried out to him to dismiss them all, and 
try what he could do with the help of his new father, 
Ammon, alone. 

Alexander was forced to hurry in among them, cause 
the ringleaders to be seized, and then make them a 
spirited speech, in which he showed them both what 
their nation had been before the time of his father, 
and what it now was, as well as that all the gain and 
the glory was as much theirs as his. Even then they did 
not submit, but remained sullen and silent for two whole 
days, while Alexander was collecting his trustworthy 
officers and the Persian troops to reduce them. At last 
they were overawed, and before a blow was struck sent 
a message of submission, and entreated the king to come 
among them again. 

He came, and they knelt round him weeping, entreating 
his pardon, and showing such a passion of affection to 
him, that the tears came into his eyes. But when he 
asked what was their grievance, there was a silence : 
they hung their heads, and no answer was made till at 
last an old captain contrived to say, " The Macedonians 



WORTHIES, 223 

are chiefly grieved that you have allowed Persians to be 
called your kinsmen !" 

"Henceforth," said Alexander, "you are all my kins- 
men ! " and he kissed the speaker. This fully appeased 
the now ashamed multitude, and a great reconciliation 
took place, which was celebrated by an enormous ban- 
quet, to which the most distinguished soldiers — 9,000 
Greeks and Persians — were invited! Augurs and Magi 
celebrated their separate rites ; 9,000 hands at once poured 
a libation of wine, 9,000 voices joined in the paean, or 
hymn of joy ; and then all sat down to the feast under 
awnings arranged in concentric circles, the king in the 
centre, then the Macedonians, then the Persians, and 
beyond them the persons of other nations. 

The pride and jealousy of the Greeks having been 
thus pacified, there was an examination of the troops, 
and no less than 10,000 were found to be too much worn 
out for further service. To each of them was given his 
full pay till he should reach home, and a talent over and 
above ; and when they took leave of their king — not 
without many tears of warm affection — their leader was 
the king's intimate friend Craterus, whose health had 
begun to fail, and who was sent home to take the govern- 
ment of Macedon, while Antipater was to come out in 
his place to join the king. 

Alexander himself was not ready for a return. His 
object was to consolidate the empire he had won, and 
unite it by threads of common interest, using the seventy 
cities he had founded as stations for learning, civilization, 
and trade, and uniting around him at one of the great 
central cities all that was best, wisest, greatest, or 
most beautiful of every land, according to the theory 
of his master, Aristotle, that the gods manifested 
themselves in different ways in every nation. It was 
another Babel of intellect and power mounting up to 



224 THE BOOK OF 

heaven, and raised by one who demanded the honours 
of a god. 

But the end was at hand. The hardships and exertions 
of body, and the extraordinary strain of mind, undergone 
in the last ten years, could not but exhaust the powers. 
Almost all the Greeks who had come with Alexander from 
home had either died or been forced to retire, and his 
closest and dearest friend, "his other self," Hephaestion, 
was seized with fever, neglected it at first, then suddenly 
became worse, and died before Alexander could hurry to 
his side. This was at Ecbatana ; and Alexander fell into 
an agony of grief, directing all to mourn for Hephaestion 
as a prince or king, when, in Persian fashion, not only were 
men shorn of their beards, but the horses and mules of 
their manes and tails, and the towns of their battlements. 
The corpse was sent to Babylon to be burnt upon the 
costliest of piles, with the most splendid of games, and 
an embassy was even sent to Ammon to ask the oracle 
whether Hephaestion might not be adored as a hero- 
god. At these games and funeral feasts the king himself 
was to be present ; but he first had to cut off a robber tribe 
around the sources of the Tigris ; and when he met a depu- 
tation from the Chaldean priests entreating him not to 
enter the city, as their soothsayers foretold that evil 
awaited him there, Alexander lightly answered, that he 
did not believe in predictions, and in fact he suspected 
that the priests were afraid of his inquiries into their 
tardiness in rebuilding the Temple of Bel : but the predic- 
tion hung heavy on his mind, all the more so as it agreed 
with a warning from a Greek augur, and with the last 
words of one of the Hindoo Yogis, who had followed him 
from India, and finding his health decline had, to the 
great horror of all the Greeks, insisted on burning himself 
to death on a pile of wood, calmly uttering predictions, 
one of which was that Alexander should die at Babylon. 



WORTHIES. 225 

And above and beyond all these, nay, perhaps inspiring 
them all, were the words of Daniel, that when the " Goat 
waxed strong, the notable horn between his eyes should be 
broken." 

But no city was so suitable as Babylon for the centre of 
the intended Empire, and into it accordingly Alexander 
marched, and there he kept his state seated on the golden 
throne of the Persian shahs, with a gold vine, with fruit 
of emeralds and carbuncles, behind him, and guarded by 
circles on circles of devoted subjects, — Greeks in their 
well-ordered simplicity of arms and raiment, Persians in 
flame colour or scarlet, with azure sashes, and elephants 
beyond all. There he received ambassadors from all 
quarters — Greeks with wreathed brows and incense in 
honour of his pretensions to deity, merchant kinsmen 
of the Phoenicians from Africa, Hindoos, Scythians, and 
a grave, resolute-looking party of men from the far West, 
in simple white garments edged with purple, who came 
to confer with him upon some quarrels with the Greek 
colonies in Italy, and looked on his magnificence with 
a certain rough scorn as unworthy of so brave a man, 
and little thought that their struggling city was destined 
to spread her conquests wellnigh as far as Macedon had 
done. 

To render Babylon all that his mind's eye saw it, it was 
needful to repair the damage that had been increasing 
ever since Nebuchadnezzar had looked on "this great 
Babylon." The arrangements for irrigation so carefully 
arranged by the Assyrians had been suffered to fall into 
decay, and the floodings of the Euphrates formed pools and 
marshes such as rendered one principal gate unusable, 
and bred fevers and agues among the inhabitants. 

To survey these and set the canals to work again was 
Alexander's occupation ; and his plans were in course of 
being carried out, when, as he was steering his own boat 
Q 



226 THE BOOK OF 

among the sluggish waters, a sudden gust of wind caught 
the light broad-brimmed hat which he wore to protect his 
head from the heat, with the royal diadem wreathed round 
it, and carried it among some weeds and weeping willows 
that grew around an old neglected tomb of some Assyrian 
king. A sailor swam to fetch it, and, to avoid wetting it, 
put it on his own head as he returned. The king rewarded 
him with a talent, but had him flogged, to preserve the 
awful respect for the diadem. But the lodgment of the 
crown upon a tomb was viewed as an omen of danger, 
while the real danger was probably in the exposure of the 
bare head — so recently shorn of its clustering locks for 
Hephasstion's sake — to the glare of the Eastern sun, amid 
those malarious marshes. 

An expedition into Arabia was intended, and the king 
offered a grand sacrifice for its success. The next night 
fever came on. Common report ascribes it to his having 
drained an enormous goblet of wine, called the Cup of 
Hercules, after which he fell down like one dead ; but as 
this was unlike his usual habit, which, though not entirely 
abstemious, certainly showed no tendency to such bois- 
terous foolhardiness, and as no such excess has been men- 
tioned by the physician whose diary of his illness has been 
preserved, the story may fairly be believed to be only one 
of the many that were always current against Alexander 
among the republican Greeks, who hated him so bitterly. 

He struggled against the increasing illness with all his 
might. Day after day the journal records his taking cold 
baths, being carried on his couch to take part in the daily 
sacrifices, and afterwards conferring with his generals 
and giving orders for the intended expedition ; but ever 
at night the fever returned with increasing violence. On 
the seventh day he was with difficulty able to bear to be 
carried to the altar of sacrifice ; on the next, though he 
just accomplished this, he could not speak, although he 



WORTHIES. 227 

showed that he knew his officers ; and for three days more 
he lay so extremely ill, that when his soldiers, in the 
utmost anxiety, insisted on being admitted to see whether 
he were yet alive, he could only raise his head and ac- 
knowledge them with his eyes. Speaking seemed to have 
become very difficult to him from the first, and after the 
disease had once put it beyond his power to keep up the 
effort, he seems to have sunk into a sort of lethargy. His 
constitution must have been exhausted by the alternations 
of cold and heat, the tremendous bodily labours and never- 
ceasing weight of anxiety and care, the severe wounds, 
especially the concussion of the brain and the injury to 
the lungs ; and though but thirty-three years of age, he 
was worn out, and sank rapidly under this malarious 
fever, just as his friend Hephsestion had done before him. 
When they saw that their wonderful chief was passing 
away, the generals became very anxious and perplexed 
as to their own future, and that of the vast dominions he 
had conquered, and they watched anxiously for some 
indication of his will ; but either his tongue or his mind 
refused themselves to the task, and very little dropped 
from him. Once he said something that they interpreted 
into declaring that his empire would pass to the strongest; 
and again he said, " there would be fierce contests at his 
funeral games/' but nothing further ; no reference to the 
child whom a few months would bring into the world ; 
no choice of guardians for his helpless family. That 
mightiest of intellects, which had been full of world- 
wide projects a few short days before, was incapable of a 
single expression of will as concerned mother, wife, or 
child. Only at the very last, when in the very death- 
struggle, he placed his signet-ring upon the finger of 
Perdiccas, the nearest and dearest of his friends since 
Hephsestion was dead and Craterus was gone ; and there- 
with he expired. 

Q 2 



228 THE BOOK OF 

Weeping and wailing, mourning and lamentation, 
spread from the palace to the army ; from the army to 
the city ; from the city to the provinces. None withheld 
their tears save the men of Greece. Otherwise, never 
was conqueror so mourned by a conquered people, to 
whom he had brought not subjection, but the freedom of 
the civilized European instead of slavery under an Eastern 
despot. Every one bewailed him as their glory, their 
friend, their patron, their hope, their defender. Old 
Queen Sisygambis, his captive, who had never been so 
kindly treated as by him, covered her face, sat down in a 
corner, and lamented, " Alas ! where shall we find another 
Alexander ?" and accepted no food, until in a few days 
she followed him to the grave. 

And Persian affection so clung around his memory, 
that tradition, though preserving his name, made him no 
foreign victor, but a native prince ; and even the wild 
tribes of the Cabul mountains actually imagine themselves 
descendants from his men. 

When his officers met, and Perdiccas laid down the 
ring upon the empty throne, there was a great blank, 
indeed, that never has been filled up. Earth has never 
since produced a man equal to Alexander of Macedon. 

For two years the officials at Babylon were preparing 
his corpse for interment. It was intended by his mother 
to place it in the temple of Ammon ; but as it was ima- 
gined that, wherever it lay, prosperity would follow, every 
one contended for the keeping of it. At last, however, it 
was brought to Egypt, with a most superb train of chariots 
adorned with sculpture ; but it was never taken to the oasis 
of Ammon, for Ptolemy, who in the great break-up of the 
Empire obtained the kingdom of Egypt, built a temple to 
receive it at Alexandria, and there offered his master the 
honours of a hero-god. 

So lived and died Alexander the Great. He had more 



WORTHIES. 229 

visible faults than the three Greeks we have dwelt on 
before ; but he had greater trials, and he lived in a glare of 
light that brings his errors into full display. But none 
can deny him the title of pre-eminently Great ; not only 
for his victories, but for his vast designs, and for his 
unflinching constancy and unfailing resource. And as 
little can he be denied the title of " Worthy," for the 
magnificent justice and beneficence that distinguished 
him above every other conqueror led him to make it 
his great object to improve, raise, and ennoble alike all 
the nations of the world. 



230 



THE BOOK OF 



MARCUS CURIUS DENTATUS. 

B.C. 360—270. 

Among the ambassadors that met Alexander at Babylon 
in the last year of his life there was, it has been said, 
a deputation of grave, earnest-looking men, with coun- 
tenances set and serious, and of resolute demeanour, with- 
out the smiles and gaiety, the grace and cultivation, of 
the Greek, but with no lack of strong practical sense, 
and of simplicity and hardihood equal to those of any 
Spartan. The garment in which they appeared on so- 
lemn occasions was an immense semicircular cloak, which 
almost entirely enveloped the figure, hanging down like 
a gown in front, but so arranged as to form a deep 
bosom, leaving one arm free. This very inconvenient 
dress was called a toga : it was of white homespun wool, 
edged with purple, more broadly or more narrowly, 
according to the rank of the wearer and the offices he 
had borne. 

These homely but resolute men, who gazed half in 
wonder, half in contempt, at the barbarian magnificence 
of the East, and at the small, slight, finished gentleman 
who had subdued it all, came from the peninsula in the 
West, which the Greeks were in the habit of regarding 
as quite as despicably barbarous as Persia, and more 
rude and savage, but furnishing good ground for the 



WORTHIES, 231 

settlement of colonies when their own cities wished to 
throw out swarms, with a greater chance of real freedom 
than could be found in Asia. Many of these existed in 
the adjacent isle of Sicily ; and the extreme south of the 
peninsula of Hesperia, the land of the Evening Star, as 
they termed it, was so full of these settlements as to be 
sometimes called Greater Greece. 

Hesperia itself was called by its natives Italia. It was, 
like Greece itself, a land of mountain and seacoast, with 
bright streams rushing down to lovely valleys ; and like 
Greece it was divided into numerous little states, but 
with more diversity of feeling, and forming many dif- 
ferent unions of tribes, hostile to one another. 

Near the centre of the western side of the long narrow 
peninsula, where the tawny waters of the Tyber came 
rapidly winding between the low skirts of the Apennine 
hills towards the sea, a city had risen up in the narrow 
ravines, the houses crowding the slopes, the temples and 
fortresses crowning the hills, the market-place spreading 
into the wide intersection of the valleys, and the walls 
girding in the whole with blocks of stone of huge size 
and wonderful architecture, only to be compared with 
that of the drainage beneath, which, strange to say, did 
not correspond with the situation of the houses above, 
as if a more intelligent people than the present inhabi- 
tants had made them. 

However that might be, these present inhabitants were 
very terrible people to their neighbours. They were, in 
quiet times, hard-working farmers, each tilling his own 
little piece of land in the rich flat country that spread 
around the hills, keeping his own sheep, kine, and goats, 
driving his plough in his rough sheepskin coat and 
broad hat, and gathering and treading his own grapes, 
while his wife and daughters spun and wove his garments, 
ground, kneaded, and baked his corn, pressed his cheeses, 



232 THE BOOK OF 

and sealed up his wine in pointed earthenware jars or 
goatskins. All this was done with much religion too. 
The guardian gods of boundaries hallowed the landmarks 
between the fields, the gods of seedtime and harvest 
were invoked to bless the sowing and the ingathering, 
the gods of the hearth and of the family had their altar 
in the court, round which the sheds forming the house 
were built, and every meal began with the pouring out of 
a libation or drink-offering to them. Above all. every man 
looked to the sacred city, where a holy fire was tended 
night and day by virgins dedicated for the purpose to 
the goddess Vesta, where the ancestral stern father-god, 
Mars, was worshipped, and where the citadel or capitol 
was sacred to the great universal father of the light and 
day, the sky-god, thundering Jupiter ; and especially that 
city herself, his sacred Rome, was the object of his 
in tensest affection ; so that for her safety, her greatness, 
and her glory, he would without hesitation willingly give, 
not only his little piece of land, but his sons, his life, nay, 
more than life, if he had had it to give. 

Let him put on his white homespun toga and walk 
bareheaded into the Forum or market-place, that valley 
surrounded with the low booths that served for shops, 
and this peasant farmer showed himself a statesman. If 
he had a gold ring on his finger, he would prove himself 
an exceedingly proud, haughty noble, or patrician, jealous 
of the rank and privileges of his order ; and probably 
tracing his descent from some god or hero, generally a 
fugitive Trojan : if he wore none, he would be equally 
proud of his family, and of belonging to the sturdy 
commons, the plebs, who were always treading on the 
heels of the patricians, and never of one mind with them 
except in dealing with the enemies of Rome. 

If his toga were resplendent with a rubbing of chalk, 
the Roman was asking the votes of his fellow-citizens to 



WORTHIES. 233 

raise him to one of the magistracies. These offices only 
lasted one year, and those who had served them might be 
known by the broader edge of their toga ; and such as 
had been in the highest thereby entered the Senate, or 
council of elders, which was composed of the heads of 
the great patrician families, together with those who had 
served the great offices of state. 

Chief of all these was the consulate. There were 
always two consuls, equal in rank, and for their year of 
office almost kingly in their power and privileges. Em- 
broidered purple togas and ivory chairs distinguished 
them, and each was attended by a pair of lictors, or 
executioners, bearing an axe and bundle of rods to 
execute prompt justice on any transgressor of the law. 
But the consulate over, the office-bearer returned to his 
farm, and, except for his seat in the Senate, was what 
he had been before. Neither had consuls nor senators 
power to make any law, or decide upon any public 
measure, unless the people were satisfied ; and hot and 
fierce were the struggles for power between the patrician 
and plebeian races, so that at home they often seemed 
ready to tear each other to pieces, but at the sound of 
war all were as one man in their determination to uphold 
the strength and glory of their beloved Rome. 

Then out came all the freemen of Rome according to 
their tribes ; and officers appointed for the purpose, who 
were called tribunes, chose out the fittest men for arms, 
and formed them into legions, the plebeians fighting on 
foot and the patricians on horseback. One consul was 
supposed to lead them to battle, and the other to stay 
at home and govern Rome, but often both were called 
into the field at once. There the discipline was per- 
fectly strict. However turbulent a man might be as a 
citizen of Rome, in the camp, as a soldier, he was as 
obedient as a slave, and did not even value his own 



234 THE BOOK OF 

honour and glory in comparison with the good of his 
country. 

Such iron resolution might well make the Romans 
formidable foes to deal with, and they had fought their 
way by slow degrees to be the chief power in the north 
and middle of Italy. Grand stories had come down of 
the elder heroes of their history, but they had been a rude 
and far from studious people, and when, B.C. 389, the 
great invasion of the Gauls had for a time endangered 
even the existence of Rome itself, such records as they 
had were all lost, so that it is not till after that era that 
enough can be collected about one man to be able to 
describe him as a Worthy. 

Yet there was much to make a Roman as worthy as a 
heathen could be. He was not a thinker, like the Greeks, 
and had no notion of living out schemes of philosophy, 
like Xenophon, Epaminondas, and Alexander ; but the 
original law of right and wrong was written deeply on 
his heart, and the ancient code of Rome was grand 
and pure. It consecrated marriage with solemn rites of 
sacrifice, and taught the matron to be faithful, resolute, 
simple, and devoted to her husband and children, giving 
her far more honour than did the Greek. It made sons 
submissive and dutiful to their parents, and the whole 
nation resolute and faithful to their country, their oaths, 
and their gods, with a great sternness and pride, but still 
with many high and noble traits of character. 

Among these ancient Worthies of the earlier and more 
unmixed days of Rome, perhaps the best to choose as 
representing the class of men to which he belonged will 
be Marcus Curius Dentatus, as he not only was in him- 
self a very fine specimen of the old Roman character, 
but was connected with other men of the same high 
nature, and lived at a turning-point in the history of 
his city. 



WORTHIES. 23s 

He must have been born somewhere about the middle 
of the third century before the Christian era. He 
belonged to a Latin town, where the people were fellow- 
citizens with Rome, and belonged to the plebeian race, 
called the Curian gens, in right of which he inherited 
the family name of Curius ; and it seems that it was 
because he .had teeth when he was born that the nick- 
name of Dentatus, or the Toothed, was given to him. It 
remained with him all his life, and was made honour- 
able by him. His first name of Marcus was that by 
which he was registered as Marcus Curius at seventeen 
years old ; when he put on the white toga of the full- 
grown, and took rank as a citizen and soldier, having 
by that time learnt to read and write, and practised 
himself in speaking fluently, as well as in the use of the 
short Roman sword and heavy spear. 

Nothing is known of his early life, but the wars in 
which the city was then engaged must have been those 
in which he was trained to arms, at the very time when 
Alexander was conquering in the East. 

The north of Italy had been nearly all subdued by the 
Romans, but in the south, among the steep limestone hills 
now called the Matese, a spur of the Apennines, dwelt a 
fierce Italian race called the Samnites. Their home was 
on the mountain side, with snowclad peaks above, woods 
of beech and chestnut clothing the slopes, and valleys of 
rich grass watered by clear streams. Bold and high- 
spirited as the Romans themselves, these mountaineers 
had been at war with them for half a century, and with 
varying success. 

The combats between these two nations were at their 
height during the youth of Dentatus, and desperate were 
some of the conflicts in the plains of Campania. It was 
in B.C. 325 that, the reigning consul having fallen sick, a 
Dictator was appointed to supply his place, and the wise 



236 THE BOOK OF 

old general Lucius Papirius was chosen ; but being obliged 
to return to Rome for a short time, he left the command of 
the army in Samnium to his lieutenant, Quintus Fabius, 
with strict orders to remain on the defensive, and attempt 
no battle until his return. 

Fabius was a high-spirited young patrician of a family 
highly esteemed among the Romans, and of remarkable 
strength and ability. Growing impatient of the delay, 
and fearing an advantageous moment might be missed, he 
attacked the Samnites, and found them more firm and 
resolute than he had expected. Thereupon he caused the 
horsemen to take off the bridles, and charge the enemy 
at the full speed of their horses. The shock was tremen- 
dous. Numbers of the Samnites were slain, and the 
victory was complete ; but Fabius in his exultation ne- 
glected his duty to the Dictator, sent notice only to the 
Senate, and burnt all the spoil lest it should adorn the 
triumph of Papirius. 

Roman discipline could not endure such insubordina- 
tion, and Papirius set forth in haste to call his lieutenant 
to account ; but in the meantime Fabius persuaded the 
army that every one of them was as much to blame as 
himself, and when Papirius arrived, and, drawing them all 
up before his tribunal, called on Fabius to explain his 
breach of duty, they were all on the side of the accused. 
The Dictator sternly sentenced his disobedient officer to 
be seized by the lictors, stripped, bound, and executed ; 
but Fabius contrived by the help of the veteran soldiers 
of the front rank to slip away among them and escape to 
Rome, to be tried by the Senate, instead of by the person 
he had most offended. 

His father had been three times consul and once Dic- 
tator, and was so much respected that he readily obtained 
of the Senate to meet at once, in hopes of their acquit- 
ting his son before Papirius was come ; but in the midst 



WORTHIES. .237 

of their sitting a great noise was heard, and in came 
the Dictator, full of rage, commanding his lictors to seize 
the escaped criminal. 

The oldest senators interceded in vain, the Dictator 
was inexorable, and all that was left to the elder Fabius 
was to appeal to the whole people assembled in the Forum. 
There then they met, and Papirius ascended the rostrum 
or pulpit, shaped like the beak of a ship, whence speakers 
were wont to address the people. The two Fabii were 
following thither, when he angrily commanded the accused 
to be pulled down. Then the old man, following his son, 
called to gods and men to witness the effects of jealous 
cruelty, and throwing his arms round his son's neck, wept 
a flood of tears. 

Every one was touched ; but when Papirius spoke of the 
evils of transgression of law, and the mischief that might 
be done by the example of one successful breach of dis- 
cipline, there was no one who ventured to dispute that the 
life of Fabius was in his hands, and deserved to be for- 
feited ; but the whole assembly became suppliants for the 
life of the gallant young man, and entreated for his pardon. 
The Dictator was satisfied. "Ouintus Fabius is par- 
doned," he said, "at the intercession of the Roman people. 
Live then, though guilty of a crime which your own father 
in my place could not have forgiven. The best return 
you can make to those who have saved your life is to show 
that this day has taught you obedience, whether in peace 
or war." 

So Fabius was saved, and with no loss of rank, for he 
became consul the next year, and gained another victory 
which was entirely his own. But in 320 the Samnites 
chose as their captain an exceedingly able man, named 
Caius Pontius, who contrived to spread a false report that 
the Samnite army was besieging the city of Luceria in 
Apulia, and thus led the whole Roman army with both 



238 THE BOOK OF 

the consuls, Veturius and Postumius, to march through 
the gorges of the Apennines to the rescue. Thus they 
came to the opening of a valley which is shut in by rocky 
and woody slopes, very narrow at either entrance, and 
with a marshy meadow in the midst, through which the 
track lay. As the Romans approached the further issue, 
they beheld it blocked up with huge stones and trunks of 
trees, and at the same moment the once solitary wooded 
heights began to swarm with enemies. The order was 
given to turn back, but no sooner had the rearguard 
passed than the Samnites had in like manner blocked 
the other opening. The Romans were caught in a trap, 
and stood gazing on one another. Then the consul's tent 
was pitched, and the usual arrangements were made for 
encamping, digging a trench, and raising an embankment 
around the tents ; but meantime the hills rang with the 
laughter of their adversaries, who knew that a few days 
must starve the enemy into accepting whatever terms 
they chose. Meantime the Samnites could not agree 
among themselves how to dispose of their grand capture, 
and sent to consult Herennius Pontius, the father of their 
general. His answer was, "Do no harm to the Romans, 
but let them go freely." This generosity, however, seemed 
beyond the power of the Samnites, and they sent to con- 
sult him again. This time he replied, " Spare not the life 
of one Roman." 

Thinking there must be some error, they sent again, 
to invite him to the camp to explain himself. He then 
told them that by free generosity and magnanimity they 
might obtain the alliance and friendship of Rome ; but if 
they could not resolve upon this, it would be better to cut 
off as many of such formidable enemies as possible at one 
blow. He was for no half-measures : but his countrymen 
were less wise and resolute. 

The half-starved Romans had in the meantime sent an 



WORTHIES. 239 

embassy to offer to treat, which had been scornfully re- 
fused ; and their officers held mournful deliberation in the 
consul's tent. Like brave men they came to the conclu- 
sion that, though to their own feelings it might seem nobler 
to rush on the Samnite spears and sell their lives dearly, 
yet, as they were the strength and defence of their city, 
they ought to submit to any terms that would preserve 
them to their country. 

And Caius Pontius offered terms that were on the whole 
lenient. He required of them an oath to restore the 
towns and lands they had conquered, and to establish 
a secure peace, upon which he would let them go, merely 
yielding up their arms and passing before the army as 
prisoners. 

The consuls consented— as consent they must ; and as 
the proper Roman officer whose business it was to swear 
to treaties was not in the camp, the consuls and all the 
officers swore to the treaty, and six hundred young 
equites or horsemen were given up as hostages. 

Then the Romans marched out of the camp. It was a 
miserable humiliation, for the clothing left them was but 
a single garment, a sort of kilt; and the consuls were 
as much exposed as the commonest men : spear, sword, 
helmet, cuirass, and war cloaks were taken from them, 
and they had in this manner to pass singly beneath 
three spears set up like a doorway, called a yoke, fork, or 
gallows, the token of absolute surrender. The spot was 
called the Caudine Forks, and a village named Forchia 
still marks it. 

Terrible was the sense of degradation to these proud 
men. Their allies in Campania came out to clothe and 
comfort them, and provide fresh tokens of honour for their 
consuls ; but they would not raise their eyes, and marched 
on in moody bitterness of soul. On their own territory 
they dispersed in silence to their homes, and the consuls 



240 THE BOOK OF 

shut themselves up in their houses, as unable to act for 
the rest of the year of office : and though the defeat had 
been bloodless, the whole nation went into mourning ; 
there were neither feasts nor marriages, and the patricians 
left off their gold rings and purple hems. 

At the end of the year old Papirius was one of the new 
consuls, and a debate was held whether the treaty should 
be accepted. Postumius, one of the late consuls, stood 
up and strongly gave his opinion that the people should 
not accept the treaty that had been wrung from the army 
in their dire distress. But he declared that he and his 
colleague Veturius were willing to be delivered up to 
the vengeance of the Samnites for having undertaken 
what they could not perform. This was likewise giving 
up- the safety of the six hundred hostages, who were 
mostly the sons of senators ; but Romans never weighed 
their own feelings against the good of the state, or when 
they thought its glory concerned. So the late consuls, 
and all the rest who had sworn the oath, were conducted 
by the priest of the public faith, whose office it was to 
confirm treaties, to Samnium. There they appeared 
before the Samnites, the priest in his long robes, his 
hair bound with a white band and twisted with sacred 
herbs ; but the late consuls and their companions in the 
half-naked state in which they had passed under the yoke, 
and bound hand and foot. The priest declared to Pontius 
and his colleagues that these men had promised what 
they had no power to perform, and that Rome, refusing to 
confirm the treaty, delivered them up to be dealt with as 
the Samnites thought fit. Then Postumius, striking the 
priest with his knee, cried aloud that he, a slave of the 
Samnites, had done violence to the person of a priest of 
the faith, and called on the Romans to avenge the insult. 
But for this last trick the proceeding would have been 
grand, and Pontius had magnanimity enough to declare 



WORTHIES. 241 

that the treaty was broken by Rome, not by these men, 
and therefore to restore them safely to their homes. 

This great disaster must have happened in the first 
childhood of Dentatus, and all through his youth and 
early manhood the Samnite war was the one thought of 
Rome. His first appearance in history was, however, in 
matters of state, not of war. About the year 299 he was 
chosen tribune of the people. This was an office always 
held by a plebeian, and had been instituted to guard their 
rights against the encroachments of the patricians. Thus 
it was that Marcus Curius Dentatus had to stand forth, 
when a factious and turbulent personage, named Appius 
Claudius, who was holding the elections for the next year, 
refused — contrary to the law — to receive votes for plebeian 
candidates. The resolution of the tribune was successful, 
and the Senate passed a decree that rendered such injus- 
tice impossible for the future. 

There were other magistracies to be held, but the patri- 
cians still kept them in their own hands, except that one 
of the consuls was always a plebeian; and in 290 this 
dignity was conferred upon Dentatus. The last year had 
been one of great success. Fabius, the same who had 
been spared at his father's intercession, had become the 
most able captain of his time, and had long ago won 
for himself the surname of Maximus, or, the Greatest. 
Strangely enough, his son likewise erred in his first com- 
mand, and was forgiven on his father's intercession and 
promise that, if the consulship were continued to him, he 
would himself serve under him as legate, or lieutenant 
and conduct all his proceedings. Under this generalship 
a decisive blow was at length dealt to the Samnite power, 
and Pontius was made prisoner thirty years after the 
matter of the Caudine Forks. One of the grand triumphs 
entered Rome, the soldiers marching joyously, singing 
songs of victory, and carrying their standards wreathed 
R 



242 THE BOOK OF 

with laurel, or displaying the spoil ; the officers on horse- 
back ; and the consul himself in a chariot drawn by white 
horses, his head crowned with laurel, and his face painted 
with vermilion, driving along the Sacred Way, and then 
climbing to the Capitol hill to lay down his laurel-wreath 
on the knees of the great Jupiter. It was young Fabius 
who received these honours, while his father rode behind 
him, rejoicing in the glory he had won for his son ; but 
the triumph was, as usual, stained by the slaughter of the 
chief prisoner. The brave Pontius was led to the dungeon 
beneath the Capitoline hill, and there beheaded while 
Fabius offered his wreath. His mercy to the consuls long 
ago won no mercy for himself. 

The next year, Marcus Curius Dentatus entered on his 
office, in company with Publius Cornelius Rufinus, and 
followed up the victories of the Fabii with such success, 
that the Samnites were reduced to sue for peace. The 
story goes that when their deputies came to seek for the 
consul, they found him, after the old Roman simple fashion, 
sitting on a wooden stool by the fire, cooking a few roots 
for his dinner, and that they offered him a large sum of 
money to obtain favourable terms for them. " So," said 
the sturdy, rustic consul, " you think poverty must be to be 
bought. You are wrong. I had rather command rich men, 
than be rich. Take back the metal, the bane of men, and tell 
your fellows that I am as hard to bribe as to beat." The 
Samnites were obliged to take the terms Curius imposed : 
and thus ended a war of forty-nine years. He had his 
triumph, but this was scarcely over before he was called 
out by a revolt of the Sabines ; and, for reducing this, 
had a second triumph. This was the first time two 
such glories had ever accrued to a consul in a single 
year ; but his stern plainness was not affected by it, and 
he became the great champion of the poor. It was a 
time of terrible distress, for there had been a severe 



WORTHIES, 243 

pestilence, and the people of the city were in a state of 
the utmost despondency, until a ship arrived, commanded 
by one Agulinus, bringing a huge serpent, which had 
come out of a hole at the foot of the statue of the god of 
medicine (^Esculapius) at Epidaurus, and had entered the 
vessel to be brought to Rome, where it took up its abode 
in an island on the Tyber. Here a temple was built, 
where the sick resorted for advice, given in dreams 
by the god; and the subsidence of the malady was 
attributed to the wonderful visitor. It had, however, 
left much poverty ; and the customs of Rome, by which 
the wealthy lent out money on usury, and then made 
slaves of those who could not redeem the debt, led to 
horrible misery. The son of Titus Veturius — one of 
the unfortunate consuls of the Caudine Forks — a fine, 
handsome, well-educated youth, was actually sold into 
slavery for the debt he had incurred to pay the expenses 
of his father's funeral; and, having been severely flogged, 
made his escape, all bleeding, and showed himself to 
the people. 

Upon this there was a great tumult, and the law per- 
mitting free citizens to be sold for debt as slaves was 
repealed. Dentatus likewise proposed that the lands 
which he had just won should be used to relieve the 
general distress, and that each citizen should be allotted 
seven acres. The patricians made a violent opposition, 
for there was nothing they hated so much as enriching 
the plebeians with the lands of the vanquished ; and his 
life was at one time in so much danger, that 800 young 
men, probably his former soldiers, formed themselves into 
a body-guard, watched round him, and would fain have 
decided the quarrel by the sword ; but no act of violence 
seems to have been committed on either side, and the 
edict was carried, which, for a time, relieved the general 
distress. But a far more dangerous enemy than any 
R 2 



244 THE BOOK OF 

which the Republic had yet encountered was about to 
descend upon Italy. 

When Alexander died at Babylon, without any one to 
succeed to his empty throne, his huge conquests were 
broken up between his officers, and the fierce and ambi- 
tious struggles that arose between semi- Greeks, half 
orientalized, were no school for Worthies. Moreover, 
Egypt, Syria, and Macedon occupied one another so 
entirely by their strife, that there was no time nor thought 
of further conquests. The kingdom of Epirus, however, 
on the shores of the Adriatic, stood in the same sort of 
relation to Greece as Macedon had formerly done, and 
like it contained a semi-barbarous people, ruled over by 
a royal family with high pretensions to a heroic Greek 
ancestry. It was from thence that Olympias, the mother 
of Alexander, had come ; it was through her that he de- 
rived his claim to be the descendant of Achilles; and 
here — among the children of her kinsman, vEacides — 
there was born a young prince, named Pyrrhus, who, 
after obtaining the throne of his father through countless 
dangers, formed the design of emulating the fame of 
Alexander by conquests directed towards the West rather 
than the East. 

Southern Italy was full of Greek settlements, which had 
always kept up their connexion with the parent states. 
The climate of the coast of those deep bays, which give 
the form of a boot to the peninsula, has always been 
enervating, and most unfavourable to the growth of any- 
thing resolute or courageous ; nor was Tarentum, the 
leading city in the third century before our era, an ex- 
ception to the prevailing love of ease and dissipation. 
The Tarentines had all the Greek cultivation and re- 
finement, and looked down on their rude, hardy Italian 
neighbours as mere clumsy barbarians ; but they were 
by no means sorry to have so determined a race as the 



WORTHIES. 245 

Samnites between them and the Romans, and when these 
gallant mountaineers were crushed and Pontius slain, they 
began to stir up fresh enemies to the dangerous city on 
the banks of the Tyber. 

About six years after the double triumph of Dentatus, 
the Tarentines — though themselves keeping in the back- 
ground — had formed a league of the remains of the Sam- 
nites with the Etruscans and several other Italian tribes, 
and the Etruscans took into their pay a large number of 
the Gallic tribe called Senones, though the bulk of the 
nation was at peace with Rome. In the first battle the 
Roman general was killed, great multitudes of his men 
killed, and the rest made prisoners ; and three ambassa- 
dors, who were sent to remonstrate with the chiefs of the 
Senones at home, were murdered and hewn in pieces — an 
outrage which was held to place the person guilty of it 
beyond the pale of mercy. 

Dentatus was, of course, no longer consul : but he was 
appointed Praetor, the next highest office, by which a man 
was judge at home, and general abroad; and, in concert 
with the two consuls, he took a terrible vengeance upon 
the savage Senones. Their men were defeated in battle, 
and the survivors slew themselves in despair ; the women 
and children were sold for slaves ; and their country was 
occupied by a Roman colony. Caius Fabricius Luscinus, 
another plain, homely, country warrior like Dentatus, 
gained several battles against the other allies; but as it 
was quite certain that the Tarentines were the true 
authors of the mischief, it was resolved to send ten 
ships of war to watch their movements. 

On the afternoon of the grand festival of Dionysos, 
the wine-god, when, in the open theatre which faced the 
sea, the whole of the Tarentines were assembled to wit- 
ness the tragic songs and dances appropriate to the day, 
they suddenly beheld ten vessels sailing round the head- 



246 THE BOOK OF 

land into the narrow gulf that ran into the heart of the 
city and formed their harbour. They rose in fury at the 
insult, and hurried down to their ships, and being far 
more numerous and better accustomed sailors than the 
Romans, they sunk four ships and took one, when they 
killed the soldiers and sold the rowers for slaves. 

For this and for their other violences in time of appa- 
rent peace the Romans sent Lucius Postumus with an 
embassy to demand an explanation, but, on their first 
appearance in the street, he was set upon by a disorderly 
rabble of foolish conceited Greeks, who hooted at the 
white purple-bordered toga as an absurd and clumsy dress, 
and mocked the sturdy rustic bearing of the Romans. 
Thus they were brought to the theatre as the place of 
public assembly, but the whole populace were so possessed 
with contempt for them, that when Postumus began to 
address them in Greek, they broke out in shouts of 
laughter at his foreign pronunciation and grammatical 
blunders, while through the whole the Roman gravely and 
calmly rehearsed his speech, without so much as seeming 
to hear or see their insolence, until at length a drunken 
wretch came up and threw dirt upon the trailing skirt of 
the white toga. He held it up to the assembly, but they 
only shrieked with laughter, clapped their hands, and 
yelled out their mockery. 

" Laugh on, Tarentines," said Postumus, u laugh while 
ye may. The time is coming when ye shall weep. The 
stain on this toga shall only be washed in blood." 

The Tarentines felt that they had in their mad folly 
committed an unpardonable offence against the majesty 
of that barbarian city of proud warriors, and, a good deal 
terrified, they sent off an embassy to young Pyrrhus, King 
of Epirus, in the name of all the Greek colonies of Italy, 
to invite him to chastise the rude but overweening city 
that began to make them uneasy. 



WORTHIES, 247 

Pyrrhus readily accepted the invitation. He was an 
active, able, and spirited man, who delighted to believe 
that he resembled Alexander, but who only did so in a few 
externals. He had neither Alexander's transcendent 
talents, nor his wide grandeur of benevolence, nor had he 
even the more common gift of perseverance and steadi- 
ness of purpose to guide his ambition, but as a well-trained 
Greek captain he was far superior to any one whom either 
the Tarentines or Romans had yet seen. 

He arrived at Tarentum in the depth of the winter of 
281, a shipwrecked battered man, who only gradually col- 
lected his dispersed fortunes ; but no sooner was he in 
the city than these merry revellers found their laughter 
already checked, for he shut up the theatres, forced every 
one to be exercised in arms and guard the walls in turn, 
and put a stop to the riotous banquets held in public. 
Those who did not like this discipline tried to escape, but 
he set a guard at the gates and stopped them as deserters, 
and he punished seditious language severely, until the 
Tarentines heartily repented of their invitation. They 
did not all get off so easily as the youth, who, being asked 
by Pyrrhus if he had really abused him as reported, 
answered," Yes, truly, king ; and we should have said much 
more against you if the wine had not failed us." Mean- 
time his army was gradually crossing from Epirus, and it 
not only included 25,000 foot, disciplined in Macedonian 
mode of warfare, able to form the irresistible phalanx and 
use the mighty lance of Alexander, with a large number 
of horsemen, archers, and slingers, but likewise seventy 
trained elephants, which the Macedonians had, since their 
Eastern expedition, been accustomed to procure from 
India and to use in their battles, though the creatures 
seem to have been chiefly serviceable as giving a certain 
grandeur of appearance which inspired barbaric terror, 
and often rendered the horses unmanageable, 



248 THE BOOK OF 

The consuls that year were. Publius Valerius Lsevinus 
and Tiberius Coruncanius, and very hard and perilous 
was their task in encountering an invasion of the best 
disciplined troops then existing, led by a prince of no 
mean ability, and inheriting the traditions of the con- 
queror of the world. Every nation hostile to Rome in all 
Italy was ready to rise and join him, and it was necessary 
to choose into the Roman legions every available fighting 
man, if the independence of Rome were to be preserved. 
The host was divided ; Coruncanius being sent to watch 
the Etruscans, while Lsevinus marched southward into 
Lucania, intending to fight with Pyrrhus before he should 
receive reinforcements from home, or be joined by the 
Samnites. 

Thereupon Pyrrhus left Tarentum to meet him, sending 
first this haughty letter : — 

'■ Pyrrhus to Lsevinus. — Health ! I am informed 
that you command an army against the Tarentines. 
Disband it without delay, and come and plead before me. 
When I have heard both parties, I will give judgment ; 
and I know how to make myself obeyed." 

The answer was : — 

"L^vinus to Pyrrhus. — Know that we neither 
accept you as a judge nor fear you as an enemy. Does 
it become you to call yourself a judge, after having 
injured us by landing in Italy without our consent? We 
will take no arbitrator save Mars, the parent of our race 
and guardian of our arms." 

After this defiance had passed, Pyrrhus advanced to- 
wards the Roman camp, which lay on the further side of 
the river Siris, which flows into the Tarentine Gulf. He 
crossed the river Aciris, which runs nearly parallel with 



WORTHIES. 249 

it, about three miles off, so as to have the plain between 
as a battle-field, and then rode forward to inspect the 
appearance of the despicable clowns that the Tarentines 
had described to him. 

When he had gazed at the orderly lines of the camp, 
and the regular entrenchments, with sentries posted at 
each opening, he turned to one of his friends, saying, 
" Megacles, this order of the barbarians is not barbarian. 
We shall see what they can do in fight." 

This view, however, made him wish to wait for rein- 
forcements, and he stationed a guard to prevent the 
enemy from crossing ; but the water was shallow enough 
to allow of their marching steadily across. The guard 
fell back, and Pyrrhus found himself obliged to give 
orders to his army to draw up in battle array, whilst 
he himself with the cavalry rode forward, hoping to 
fall on the legions while in the confusion of climbing 
the bank. 

He found them, however, all dra.wn up, their long 
shields forming an embattled line, their pikes projecting 
before them, and their horse in front ready to receive the 
attack. The fight was sharp, and Pyrrhus' beautiful 
armour and scarlet mantle marked him out for general 
attack. One of the Italian allies so pursued him, that a 
Macedonian called out to him to beware of the barbarian 
on the black horse with the white feet. 

" What must be, must be," called back Pyrrhus ; " but 
not the stoutest soldier in Italy shall encounter with me 
for nothing." 

The Italian dashed at him and killed his horse, but he 
was instantly remounted by his attendants and his brave 
foe killed, while he fell back on his infantry, hastily ex- 
changing his too conspicuous attire with Megacles. It is 
curious that a most exquisite pair of bronze shoulder- 
pieces should have been discovered on the field of Siris, 



250 THE BOOK OF 

so beautiful and costly in their engraving, as to render it 
very probable that they were dropped by Pyrrhus in this 
hasty change of garb. Megacles became the object of 
general attack, and was soon slain, his royal array being 
brandished by the Romans in triumph, so that Pyrrhus 
was forced to ride bareheaded along his own line to con- 
vince them that he was alive. It was a tremendous battle. 
Seven times the Romans were forced back from their 
ground, seven times they gained it again, and at last 
Laevinus brought forward a chosen body of cavalry, 
which he had kept in reserve, hoping that a charge of 
fresh troops must disperse the Greeks, exhausted by such 
hard fighting. But now the elephants — never before 
beheld by any Roman — were brought forward in imposing 
array. The horses grew mad with terror, and turned 
about, treading down the infantry, and the rout was 
complete : indeed the Romans would have been totally 
destroyed, had it not chanced that one of the elephants 
having been wounded in the trunk came thundering back 
on the Greeks, and so disordered them, that the remnant 
of the Roman army had time to cross the river and 
retreat in something like order. 

But Pyrrhus felt that he could not afford to win many 
more such battles. He had lost 4,000 men, many of them 
his best friends and generals, and he could not have been 
much delighted with the Tarentinea. Moreover, the wea- 
ther was dreadful. A storm so severe happened soon 
after the battle of Siris, that in one small division of the 
Roman army thirty-four men were knocked down and 
twenty-two nearly killed. And all seemed so unfavourable 
that Pyrrhus decided on offering terms to the Romans. 
If they would make peace with Tarentum, restore all they 
had taken from the Samnites and other Italian tribes, 
and declare all the Greek colonies independent, he would 
leave Italy and enter into an alliance with them. 



WORTHIES. 251 

He sent Kineas, a Thessalian philosopher, to Rome to 
propose these terms. He was a man of much wit and 
brilliancy of speech, and had such a memory that the day 
after his arrival at Rome he could address every senator 
by his proper name ; and he likewise brought with him 
numerous elegant and costly Greek ornaments as presents 
to the ladies, in hopes that they would dispose their hus- 
bands favourably. Some writers boast that they were all 
refused, others say that more than one senator was swayed 
by them, but at any rate a day was appointed for Kineas 
to have an audience in the Senate House, and set forth his 
proposals before the Conscript Fathers — the official title 
of the Senate. 

After all the folly the Tarentines had uttered, the Greek 
was greatly struck by the majestic scene that the Temple 
presented where the Senate assembled. The carvings 
might indeed be rude, and the pillars clumsy, but there, 
in their seats of office, sat rows of grave, solid-looking men, 
in their long white robes, and ivory wands, each of them 
having won his place by ruling in the city, and com- 
manding in the field, and each as ready to obey as to 
command — all actuated by one will, and that the glory of 
their city. 

Kineas stood up, and began to address them with the 
fluent tongue which was said to win as many cities for 
Epirus as the sword of Pyrrhus. In the midst there was 
a hush. Some of the senators went down the steps, and 
then the whole of the Conscript Fathers rose as they re- 
turned, leading in a blind old man, in the extremity of age, 
and placed him on his curule chair. He was Appius 
Claudius, formerly a factious, turbulent politician, the 
great enemy of Dentatus, but wholly a Roman in heart, 
and unable to stay away from a debate touching the 
honour of the Republic. When he spoke from his chair 
of the shame of allowing a foreign king to intrude himself 



252 THE BOOK OF 

into judging of the quarrels of Rome, or requiring her 
conquests to be relinquished, the whole Senate was led by 
his words. There was perfect silence as long as his voice 
was heard ; and when he ceased, the senators with one 
accord voted that the answer should be, that they would 
make no terms with Pyrrhus as long as he remained on 
Italian soil, but that they would oppose him with all 
their might, even though he should vanquish a thousand 
Lsevini. 

Kineas left Rome the next day, and went back to his 
master at Tarentum. Pyrrhus asked what he thought of 
the city. He replied, " Rome is a Temple, and the 
Senate an assembly of kings ; " and he likewise added 
that to fight with such a people was like fighting with 
the hundred-headed hydra, whose heads grew again as 
fast as they were cut off. 

The new consuls of B.C. 278 were Publius Sulpicius 
Saverrio and Publius Decius Mus ; the latter the son and 
grandson of the two men who had both sacrificed them- 
selves for their country : and preparations for the campaign 
proceeded. Meantime (though there is some doubt as to 
the year) three Romans, of whom Caius Fabricius was 
the most noted, were sent to Pyrrhus to arrange for an 
exchange of prisoners. 

Fabricius was one of the sturdiest and plainest of 
Romans, and Pyrrhus had heard that he was exceedingly 
poor, and was remarkable for his honesty and integrity. 
So, according to the Roman writers, the king desired a 
private interview with him, in which he declared that he 
needed nothing so much as an honest man in his service, 
and would give any price for him, offering large payment 
in the hope of securing one at least of this nation of kings 
to act under him among his faithless degenerate Greeks. 
But Fabricius smiled at the proffer, and declared that 
his little farm, cultivated by his own hands, supplied all 



WORTHIES. 253 

his wants, he needed neither gold nor silver, and no king 
could do anything for him — he cared only for a good 
conscience and honest fame. 

Pyrrhus then tried rather a childish experiment on his 
self-possession, by drawing aside a curtain suddenly, and 
showing his biggest elephant close behind, flourishing 
its trunk and trumpeting terrifically; whereat Fabricius 
only smiled, and told the king that he took no more 
account of his great beast than of his gold and silver. 

The Roman ambassadors were invited to a banquet, 
where Greek luxury was displayed before their eyes in 
hopes of eliciting some wonder and admiration ; and 
Kineas was further set to discourse on philosophy. That 
which he had embraced was that of Epicurus, who held 
that enjoyment was the great purpose of existence, and 
the wisest man was he who most consulted his own plea- 
sure. It was the favourite sophistry then common among 
the Greeks, and it was well wrapped in specious wordi- 
ness ; but no sooner did the soldierly Fabricius make 
out its drift than he quaintly cried, " O Hercules ! may 
Pyrrhus and the Tarentines be heartily of this sect while 
they are at war with us V 

This made Pyrrhus wish all the more to persuade 
Fabricius to become his friend, and go home with 
him. " Nay," said the Roman humourously, "take care 
when your subjects know me ; they may want me for 
king in your stead ! " The result of the interview was that 
though the captives were not exchanged, they were allowed 
on the word of honour of Fabricius to go and celebrate 
a religious festival at Rome, 

Another battle was approaching. Pyrrhus was besieg- 
ing Asculum when both consuls advanced to raise the 
siege, and it was reported that Decius Mus intended to 
imitate his father and grandfather by throwing himself 
on the spears as a sacrifice to the nine gods. Pyrrhus 



254 THE BOOK OF 

accordingly warned his soldiers that if they saw any one 
arrayed in the purple embroidered toga, such as had been 
worn by the two preceding Decii on those occasions, they 
should not kill him, but take him alive ; and he sent 
word to the consuls that if he should take any Roman 
practising such a trick, he should put him to death as 
an impostor. The consuls answered that they needed no 
such help, for that Roman courage was sufficient. 

But it did not prove itself equal to the impossible task 
of breaking through the hedge of levelled pikes that pro- 
tected the phalanx. In vain the Romans hewed at them 
with their swords, or tried to thrust them aside with their 
hands. 

" The stubborn spearmen still made good 
The tough impenetrable wood," 

and the legions perished without being able to inflict 
a wound. Decius the consul fell, they gave way, and 
then the elephants charged, and drove them off the field ; 
but in the meantime the faithless Italians had been 
plundering the camp of Pyrrhus, and it is even said that 
he himself was wounded while driving them out. 

The winter set in, and Pyrrhus became more and more 
disgusted with his enterprise and his allies, more especially 
when he received the following letter from Fabricius, who 
had been appointed consul in company with Quintus 
^milius : — 

"Caius Fabricius and Quintus ^Emilius to King 
Pyrrhus.— Health ! Thou choosest ill both friends and 
foes. When thou hast read this letter sent us by one of 
your own people, thou wilt see that thou makest war with 
the good and honest, and trustest the base and wicked. 
We warn thee not for our own sake, nor to make our court 
to thee, but to avoid the shame thy death would bring on 
us, if, for want of strength and courage, we used treachery." 



WORTHIES. 255 

Therewith was sent a letter from Pyrrhus' own phy- 
sician, endeavouring to obtain a reward from the consuls 
for poisoning his master. 

Pyrrhus exclaimed, "This is that Fabricius who can no 
more be turned from justice and generosity than can the 
sun from his course." To show his gratitude he newly 
clothed all the Roman prisoners, and released them with- 
out ransom ; and the proud Republic, not choosing to 
incur an obligation, conferred the same benefit on an 
equal number of his Tarentine and Samnite allies. He 
was beginning much to prefer the Romans to his allies, 
and sent Kineas again to propose a treaty, but the Senate 
would accept none as long as his troops remained in 
Italy. 

However, a project of delivering the Greek colonies in 
Sicily from the dominion of the Carthaginians called 
Pyrrhus off, and he sailed thither, still, however, keeping 
up his support of the Italians, to whom, after two years, 
he returned, B.C. 276, late in the autumn, with numerous 
reinforcements, making as formidable an appearance as 
on his first arrival. 

The Romans felt the moment critical, and chose a 
second time to the consulate the brave Curius Dentatus 
in company with Lucius Cornelius Lentulus. The Senate 
was as resolute as ever, but the terrible losses of the 
battles of the Siris and Asculum had dismayed the popu- 
lace ; the Greeks seemed to them invincible ; and moreover 
there had lately been a severe attack of some infectious 
disease throughout the city, so that a depressed temper 
prevailed, and when legions were to be raised for the war, 
men hung back reluctant. 

Stern Curius saw that prompt severity was needed. 
The tribes were summoned to the Campus Martius, the 
field of Mars, or muster place ; the sacrifices were made ; 
they were sprinkled with the sacred water of lustration ; 



256 THE BOOK OF 

and then the names of all the tribes were thrown into an 
urn, whence they were to be drawn forth by a young child. 
The first tribe drawn was the Pollian gens. All the 
names of the men of that tribe who were of fit age to 
serve were then thrown into a vase and drawn again. 
The first that came up belonged to an insolent young 
man, who replied by refusing to take the oath that bound 
him to serve and obey. 

Curius thereupon commanded the property he would 
not fight for to be sold by auction, according to an old 
law, which, however, had so seldom been put in opera- 
tion that Pollius appealed to the tribunes of the people 
to protect him, but they would not interfere ; and Curius 
proceeded to command the man to be sold as well as 
his lands, saying "the Republic did not want fellows who 
refused obedience." 

After this no one refused to answer to his name, and 
two armies were soon formed, with one of which he 
marched into Samnium, while Lentulus entered Lucania. 
Pyrrhus himself came out to encounter Curius, who had 
taken up his position on some steep, rugged ground 
near the city of Beneventum. There he lay entrenched, 
and finding that the Epirot king was coming in person 
against him, sent to summon his colleague to join forces 
with him ; but Pyrrhus, hoping to surprise him before 
this could take place, set forth by torchlight, meaning to 
fall on him in early morning. The way, however, was 
full of steep hills and valleys, rugged with rocks, and 
encumbered with woods, so that his men's progress was 
slow ; the lights burnt out, and many straggled, so that 
by daybreak the wearied army was in full view upon 
the slope of the hill above the camp. 

Curius drew out his men to attack them ; and as on the 
rugged ground it was impossible to form the impenetrable 
phalanx, he was already gaining great advantage when 



WORTHIES. 257 

one of the elephants was wounded, and, as usual, rushing 
back among the troops among whom it marched, did 
much mischief to them. Another was killed, and eight 
more were driven into such a narrow place among the 
rocks that their drivers, seeing no escape, surrendered 
them to the Romans. After this skirmish, Dentatus de- 
scended into the open plain to fight a pitched battle with 
the enemy. One side had the advantage from the first. 
The other was forced backwards by the charge of the 
elephants into the camp ; but there gathering up darts 
and javelins, they hurled them at the unwieldy monsters, 
while others dashed out on them with flaming torches. 
The poor beasts were wild with terror, and, hurrying back, 
trod down all behind them. One young one, which was 
much hurt, streamed frightfully, and this maddened its 
mother, who thundered hither and thither, effectually 
ruining the whole order of the Greek army, so that the 
Romans, getting between the long spears, used their 
short swords with terrible advantage. The victory was 
complete : Pyrrhus could only retreat into Tarentum with 
the remnant of his army, leaving his whole camp to the 
plunder of the Romans, and, what was more, to their 
study, for they learnt many useful lessons from its 
arrangement, and much improved their own method of 
encamping. 

Pyrrhus found matters so hopeless in Italy that he 
sailed, at once for his own kingdom, leaving an officer 
named Milo in Tarentum, and promising to return when 
he should have raised a fresh army. Meantime, Marcus 
Curius Dentatus returned to hold his triumph, which was 
the grandest that had ever passed along the Sacred Way, 
since the spoil of Pyrrhus consisted of all that Greek art 
combined with Eastern luxury could produce. . There 
were vases of gold and silver, purple carpets and hang- 
ings, beautiful statues and pictures, and, most wonderful 
s 



258 THE BOOK OF 

of all, the captured elephants padded along with their 
towers upon their backs. All this spoil was given up to 
the public treasury without reserve ; such was then early 
Roman honour. The Senate wanted to reward Dentatus 
with fifty acres of the lands of the Tarentines, but he had 
always held that it was a crime for the generals to enrich 
themselves out of what he viewed as a provision for the 
poor citizens, who ought to receive allotments before 
those already possessed of enough to live upon. So he 
answered that he was content with his own seven acres. 
Thereupon, some of the greedier sort, who hated this 
example of disinterestedness, declared that this was all 
pretence, for that he had helped himself largely to the 
spoil of Pyrrhus. He was called upon to make oath 
before the Senate that he had taken nothing of the 
plunder. He bethought himself for a moment, and then 
confessed that verily he had taken something. He had 
picked up one wooden bowl, wherewith to make a liba- 
tion to the gods, and had carried it home ! 

The Roman people elected him consul for a second year 
— his third consulate — and he inarched out to drive the 
Samnites into their mountains ; after which he went back 
to his little farm till his country should again need him. 
In the course of the next year he was made censor ; that 
is, he had to take charge of the public buildings, as well 
as to inquire into the qualifications of every citizen for 
voting or standing for a magistracy. This gave him an 
opportunity of proposing a worthy manner of disposing 
of the booty of Beneventum. It was, to spend it in 
bringing water into Rome, by building an aqueduct to 
conduct a stream from the river Anio into the city, so as 
to keep it constantly supplied with pure fresh water. He 
likewise dug a canal to bring the water of the lake Velinus 
to refresh the town of Reate, after which the stream had 
to leap down a rock 140 feet high into the river Nar. 



WORTHIES. 259 

For two thousand years has it thus been dashing down 
the rock, so that those who gaze upon the beautiful cas- 
cade, now called of Terni, forget that it is not the work of 
Nature, but of one of the large-hearted, simple-mannered 
men of the time when Rome was a temple, and her 
Senate all kings. 

The aqueduct of the Anio was a work of time ; and 
Curius was appointed to another magistracy in 270, that 
he might superintend its completion. But he died only 
five days after the choice was made, leaving his family 
so poor that the state gave a dowry to his daughter, but 
bequeathing to them a name held in eternal honour for 
simple uprightness, honesty, and patriotism, the qualities 
which not only marked him and his friend Fabricius, but 
many others of the high-minded men whose constancy 
drove Pyrrhus out of Italy. 

That poor imitation of Alexander never returned. He 
became involved in wars nearer home, and in 272 was 
killed in besieging the city of Argos, by a woman who, 
seeing him about to strike her son, threw down a heavy 
stone on his head. The Samnites, learning his death, 
fought one last desperate battle, and then, after their 
wars of seventy-two years, gave up their independence; 
the city of Tarentum surrendered ; and before many years 
were past the whole of Southern Italy was in effect 
subject to Rome, the all-conquering. 



S 2 



260 THE BOOK OF 



CLEOMENES. 

B.C. 252 — 220. 

We must turn for a time from the contemplation of 
thriving, brilliant, and prosperous nations in early youth, 
and look at the picture of Worthies as staunch and true, 
but fallen upon sadder times. After having seen how 
Nehemiah, under Divine aid, brought back the old con- 
stitution to his fallen city, we must now see the brave 
struggle of two young Greeks to revive the severe and 
noble days of their ancient state. 

Sparta had become thoroughly degenerate. Her ancient 
discipline was gone ; and though her two kings remained to 
her, the government was in the hands of five ephors, or elec- 
tive judges, who held the whole power in the city. They 
were shamefully corrupt, and the whole of the system 
of Lycurgus was utterly disregarded. Indeed, the Greek 
states existed and retained their freedom only through 
the rivalries of the four great powers into which Alex- 
ander's empire had split up — Macedon, Thrace, Syria, 
and Egypt. Leonidas, one of the two kings, had spent 
several years at the court of Seleucus, King of Syria, 
who held all the Eastern conquests of Alexander, and at 
whose court there was a strange and most unwholesome 
mixture of Greek intellect and Oriental luxury, an atmo- 
sphere full of corruption. There Leonidas had married, 
and on his return tried to introduce the pomp and 



WORTHIES. 261 

splendour of an Eastern prince, when all real power 
and freedom were gone from the country he ruled in 
name. The other king, Eudamidas, was equally averse 
to hardihood, and was, besides, avaricious, so that on his 
death, B.C. 244, his widow and his mother were said to 
possess more gold than all the rest of the Lacedaemonians 
put together. His son, Agis, was, however, of very dif- 
ferent mould. He had read the histories of his nation, 
and longed to be worthy of his forefathers. Even as 
a boy he renounced whatever Lycurgus had forbidden, 
wore the simplest dress and ate the plainest fare, de- 
claring that he would not care to be king were it not for 
the hope of reviving the ancient discipline of Sparta. 

After his father's death, when he was but nineteen, he 
continued his plain and hardy habits ; and while the elder 
king wore the diadem, and the purple, and the jewels of 
an Eastern potentate, the younger proudly uplifted his 
head uncovered, like Leonidas and Agesilaus of old, and 
used all his influence to resume the public meals, baths, 
and lodgings, and all the rules which, if harsh and un- 
natural, were to his mind identified with all that was vir- 
tuous, glorious, and self-sacrificing. But reforms must 
go deep. The proud old native Dorian Spartans had 
dwindled to joo ; and only about 100 of these had pre- 
served their hereditary possessions, while all the rest 
were starving. To bring back the old law and make a re- 
distribution of lands was in the young king's mind the 
only remedy. He knew he must begin at home, and 
his persuasions brought his mother and grandmother to 
consent freely to throw all their enormous wealth into 
the common stock as the first sacrifice. Moreover, his 
mother talked over her brother Agesilaus, which was the 
more easily done because he was so much in debt that 
he could only be the gainer by any arrangement. 

The wealth of Sparta was, it was said, chiefly in the 



262 THE BOOK OF 

hands of women, and their dismay at the young king's 
proposal was extreme. They loudly clamoured to his 
colleague, and entreated him to check such madness and 
robbery ; but Leonidas, though bitterly angry, could not 
make open opposition, since Agis had on his side all the 
men of high birth who had been brought to poverty by 
the working of the later law. 

An assembly was held, and Lysander, one of the 
ephors, who always had more power than the kings, 
brought forward the measures proposed, and showed how 
by the violation of her old laws their city had fallen from 
her supremacy and become degraded, whereas their re- 
vival might yet bring back her valour and self-respect. 
For it was moral greatness, not breadth of conquest, that 
a true Greek valued. 

Then Agis, in the name of himself, his mother, and 
grandmother, gave up his wide tracts of land and heaps of 
gold and silver ! Leonidas, of course, spoke in opposi- 
tion, but Agis was ready with many a maxim of philoso- 
pher and poet, and won over, not merely all the needy, 
but all the high-minded and enthusiastic, among them 
a youth nearly related in birth, named Cleombrotus, who 
was married to Cheilonis, the daughter of Leonidas. But 
the elder king had so strong a party among the rich that 
the reformers felt that he must be removed if they were 
to make any progress ; and accordingly they brought 
forward an ancient law, which deprived any son of Her- 
cules of the kingly office if he espoused a foreign woman. 

On hearing of this, Leonidas took sanctuary in the 
temple of Athene, while his daughter came to supplicate 
for him ; but as he did not appear when the ephors 
summoned him, they deposed him, and appointed Cleom- 
brotus in his stead. The two young kings acted in their 
impatience with some violence ; for when Lysander and 
his friends went out of office, and a less favourable set 



WORTHIES. 263 

of ephors came in, they went with drawn swords and 
turned them out, putting in a new set, including Age- 
silaus : but they shed no blood ; and Agis, hearing that his 
uncle meant to have the dethroned prince assassinated, 
took care to have him escorted safely to Tegea with his 
daughter Cheilonis, who clung to him in misfortune. 

This uncle, Agesilaus, was an unprincipled and mis- 
chievous person. All he really wanted was to be quit 
of his debts, and he persuaded his nephew that till all 
these weie cancelled it was impossible to redistribute 
the lands. So all the bonds were brought into the place 
of assembly and burnt, while Agesilaus cried out " he 
had never seen so fine a fire." Then, having gained his 
object, he Mas resolved not to part with his lands, and 
managed to delay until a summons came to Sparta from 
their neighbours the Achaians, who were trying to main- 
tain the old cignity of Greece, to march against the JEto- 
bans. Agis vent out at the head of an army, consisting 
of all the best and bravest of the Spartans, and though 
the youngest man in his camp, and surrounded by no 
pomp, he was so much respected and implicitly obeyed, 
and his troop; were so orderly, that the allies looked on 
as if the Spa-tans of old history had risen from their 
graves at Theimopylse. Owing to the excellent tactics of 
Aratus, the geieral of the Achaians, there was no fight- 
ing ; and whei Agis returned to Sparta, he found that 
his absence hac been ruinous to his reforms. 

Probably few really wished for them, though his ardour 
had prevailed (ver the spirits of some for a time ; and 
Agesilaus had leen disgracing his cause by deeds of vio- 
lence and avarice, till he was in so much danger that he 
had been obliged to raise a guard of soldiers to secure 
his life. His conduct made people distrust Agis, and the 
opposite party prevailed to have Leonidas recalled so 
suddenly, that, -vhile Agesilaus fled, Agis was forced to 



264 THE BOOK OF 

shelter himself in the temple of Athene, and Cleombrotus 
in that of Poseidon, where he was found by his wife 
Cheilonis, whose heart was always with the unfortunate. 
There her father found her and her two little children, as 
if to protect her husband. She threw herself before him, 
in a mourning dress and streaming hair, and pleaded 
hard for Cleombrotus, until her father gave way and 
granted his life, provided he would go into exile. She 
would not consent to remain with Leonidas ; but after 
kneeling in thanksgiving to the goddess, left the city 
with her husband. 

Agiatis, the young wife of Agis, loved her husband as 
devotedly, but she could not join him in the temple, for 
her firstborn infant was born in these days jf suspense. 
Agis remained for some little time living ir the temple, 
where no one could touch him, and only leaving it to go 
to the baths, escorted by a band of armed fiends. Two 
of these were at last bribed by Leonidas to betray him, 
as they were passing the street. One seized him, crying, 
"Agis, I must conduct you to the ephors " The other 
threw his mantle over him to muffle and ercumber him ; 
while Leonidas came up with a foreign guard of hired 
soldiers ; and the brave youth was forced nto the prison 
just at nightfall. 

Thither at once came the ephors to itterrogate him. 
One, hoping to save him, asked if he had lot been forced 
to all his strange proceedings by the conpulsion of his 
uncle. 

"No," he said ; "by the example of L>curgus alone." 

" Did he repent ?" 

" I can never repent of virtue, in the veil face of death." 

Sentence of death was at once pronounced, and the 
guards were ordered to remove him to thedungeon where 
criminals were usually strangled. Even theforeign soldiers 
hung back from laying hands on the kindly young man, 



WORTHIES. 2 65 

not yet twenty-four years old, and it was the traitorous 
friend who seized on him and dragged him to the dungeon. 
Meanwhile, sounds of deliverance drew near ; the people, 
whose champion he had been, were clamouring at the 
doors, torches gleamed in the streets, and his mother and 
grandmother were hurrying from one to another, im- 
ploring that the King of Sparta might at least plead his 
cause in open day before the citizens. 

These sounds only hastened the proceedings of his 
enemies. The executioners were sent at once to perform 
their office. One absolutely shed tears, but Agis calmly 
said, " Weep not, my friend. ; I am far happier than those 
who condemn me," and held out his neck for the rope, 
which strangled him almost at the moment that his 
mother and grandmother entered the prison to see him. 
The grandmother was instantly strangled ; the mother 
simply said, " May this be for the good of Sparta ! " 
straightened the limbs of the two corpses, and presented 
her neck to the same cord. The three corpses were ex- 
posed to public view, and the young wife Agiatis, and her 
babe, were carried to the house of Leonidas, while Archi- 
damas, the brother of Agis, fled to Messene. 

Thus in 240, after three years, did the noble scheme of 
Agis apparently end in horrible violence, and the grand 
thoughts acted up to are wholly without fruit ; but the 
spirit of Agis still lived, though his infant child was soon 
poisoned in the house of his enemy. The poor young 
wife, Agiatis, was treated as a captive, till, much against 
her will, she was compelled to marry Cleomenes, the son 
of the murderer of her husband and child. He was a 
mere boy, guiltless of his father's crimes ; and though 
Agiatis always remained grave and stern towards her 
hateful father-in-law, his wife Cratesiclea was kind and 
good. She softened towards the lad, who had the 
same loving heart as his mother, and who looked up to 



266 THE BOOK OF 

her with reverent affection and admiration, for she was 
said to be the most beautiful, stately, and wise of the 
ladies of Greece. He never ceased to ask her questions 
about Agis and his designs : and thus, in the very house 
of Leonidas, she was bringing up a true scholar and 
imitator of the brave young husband who had been cut 
off in the bud of his hopes. 

Moreover, Leonidas had sent his son to listen to 
Sphserus, who was teaching philosophy according to the 
fashion of the later Greeks, who thought no education" 
complete without at least the theory of some system or 
other. Sphserus was of the Stoic school, so called from 
Stoa, a porch or portico. It was graver and sterner than 
the former systems, and declared Virtue to be the supreme 
good, in quest of which no sacrifice was too great, and 
that he only was worthy who would devote himself solely 
to Virtue, without thought of reward here or hereafter. 
It was a most sublime thought, truly above and beyond 
the powers of human nature ; and this hopeless faith was 
the stimulus and support of the greatest spirits of these 
dark and weary days, spirits the greater perhaps for their 
very hopelessness. 

To Leonidas it was a mere high-sounding jargon ; and 
he little thought that it was becoming the principle of his 
young son's life, or that Stoic philosophy was nerving 
the boy to become a second Agis, and to strive with his 
whole soul to bring back to Sparta a virtue, uprightness, 
and resolution that his imagination ascribed to her in her 
severest age. 

Leonidas died in 236, and Cleomenes became the sole 
king, since Archidamas, the only survivor of the other 
line, was a fugitive. Still he was entirely powerless, for 
the ephors usurped the whole government ; and all he 
could do was to live as a true disciple of Lycurgus, and 
study the example of Agis from those who had known 



WORTHIES. 267 

him best. His hope was in taking the field at the head 
of an army, and it was not long before an opportunity 
was afforded him. The little cities of Achaia had banded 
themselves together in what was called the Achaian 
League ; and under the guidance of Aratus, a statesman 
and general of considerable ability, had rendered them- 
selves so formidable that the brave old days of Greece 
seemed almost reviving in them. They wanted to become 
supreme in the Peloponnesus, and were very jealous of 
Sparta. So, without any provocation, Aratus led a party 
at night to surprise Tegea and Orchomenus, Arcadian 
towns in alliance with Sparta. However, warning was 
sent in time to Lacedaemon ; and Cleomenes, with full 
consent of the ephors, reinforced the garrisons of the 
towns, and marched out himself to a place called the 
Athenaeum, which commanded one of the passes into 
Laconia. 

Aratus failed in his attempt : whereupon Cleomenes sent 
a letter to ask the purpose of his night march ; to which 
Aratus replied, that he meant to prevent the fortification 
of the Athenaeum. " What, then," demanded Cleomenes, 
" was the use of the torches and scaling ladders ? " 

Aratus laughed, and asked a Spartan exile what kind of 
youth this was. 

"If you have any designs on Lacedaemon," was the 
answer, " begin them before the game-chicken's spurs 
are grown." 

However, the spurs were grown enough to have made 
themselves felt in Arcadia before the ephors summoned 
him back ; but they soon had to send him out again, with 
5,000 men, into Argolis. The Achaians offered battle, 
and with very superior numbers ; but Aratus, arriving in 
the camp, commanded a retreat — for what reason is not 
known. But the army were much elated, and Cleomenes 
proudly reminded them of the old saying that the Spartans 



268 THE BOOK OF 

never asked about their enemies how many they were, 
but where they were. And soon he gained a most brilliant 
victory ; for coming up with the Achaians at Mount 
Lycaeum, he routed them so utterly that for some days 
it was not known whether Aratus were dead or alive. 

The doubt was solved, however, by the wily old leader 
suddenly appearing at Mantinea, and capturing it : and 
this material loss gave the ephors occasion to cry down 
their young king's success and call him home. Feeling 
himself hampered on every side by their opposition, he 
hoped to be stronger by the support of his fellow-king, 
Archidamas, and sent to invite him to share the throne ; 
but the ephors, fearing their united strength, caused the 
royal youth to be stabbed immediately on his arrival : and 
the enemies of Cleomenes contrived to cast the blame of 
both this murder and that of the infant child of Agis upon 
him. His mother, Cratesiclea, who, if she were the Grasco- 
Syrian wife of Leonidas, had become a true Spartan at 
heart, did all she could to further her son's cause, and 
even married again to gain a partizan for him. Once 
more his ardent wish was fulfilled ; he again was sent out 
with an army, and gained another victory over Aratus 
and the Achaians. 

He felt assured that he could raise Sparta to her old 
place if he were but free to act, unfettered by the ephors. 
And most conveniently for him, one of the ephors having 
gone to sleep in a temple, according to the habit of those 
who sought revelations from the gods, saw four of the 
chairs of his colleagues removed, and heard a voice say, 
" This is best for Sparta." Upon this, Cleomenes, having 
arranged matters with his friends, led out an army con- 
taining most of the persons most averse to reform. He 
took them on long marches, and at last, when they were 
wearied out, encamped at a great distance from home, 
and there leaving them, he and a trusty party of friends 



WORTHIES. 269 

hurried home without exciting suspicion, for Cleomenes 
never could bear to stay long away from his beloved wife, 
and was in the habit of galloping home to see her when- 
ever he could be spared. 

He and his friends beset the ephors at supper. Four 
were killed — and this must be charged against Cleo- 
menes — but there was no other blood shed ; and when 
the people were assembled in the morning, the king 
clearly demonstrated that the ephors' overweening power 
had been usurped, and that after their most illegal 
murder of Agis without a trial it had been needful to use 
strong measures. Almost all his opponents were fled or 
absent, and the people eagerly agreed to his proposals for 
reformation. The cancelling of debts and redistribution 
of property were carried out ; Cleomenes resigned his 
own estates, and the division was made, reserving a share 
for the exiles, who he promised should return when the 
reform was safely established. And as the other line of 
kings was now extinct, he raised his younger brother, 
Eucleidas, to the throne. 

Thus, for a time, Sparta was renovated — Agis' work 
was done — and the severity of their manners restored. 
Strict military discipline was established throughout the 
city ; the young men were always on duty ; and the meals 
were plain and simple — though, indeed, when one of his 
zealous imitators entertained some strangers with black 
broth and pulse, Cleomenes reproved him, saying that 
it would not do to be exact Spartans when entertaining 
visitors. No sports of the theatre were allowed, only 
athletic training ; and Cleomenes himself was the hardiest 
and simplest of all in his demeanour. Men used to 
the Eastern pomp of the successful Macedonians re- 
marked, that while these upstart princes wore purple 
robes and splendid diadems, lounged on piles of cushions, 
and never received or answered a petition but through 



2jo THE BOOK OF 

a host of attendants and slaves, when visitors came to 
Sparta, the lineal descendant of Hercules, whose ancestry- 
counted back through thirty- one kings, came simply for- 
ward to meet them in person uncrowned, and clad like 
any other Greek, attended to what they said, and showed 
his true nobleness in gracious demeanour. And the con- 
trast, though partly the effect of the smallness of his 
kingdom, did no small good to the cause of the last of the 
Heracleids. 

Mantinea turned out the Achaians and invited Cleo- 
menes back ; and all Peloponnesus felt that the question 
was whether the Achaians or Spartans should be their 
chief. After another Spartan victory, a conference was 
proposed, at which, according to promise, the Achaians 
were to have made peace, and declare Cleomenes head of 
the League of Peloponnesus ; but he had overtaxed his 
strength by the Spartan discipline, and after having ex- 
cessively fatigued himself by long marches, and chilled 
himself by drinking cold water, he broke a blood-vessel, 
and was forced to be carried back to Sparta to be nursed 
by his wife. The first thing he did on his arrival was to 
command all the Achaian prisoners to be set at liberty, in 
confidence that his illness had only deferred the fulfilment 
of the treaty. 

But it gave Aratus time to send an embassy to Antigo- 
nus, King of Macedon. To him it seemed that dependence 
on the northern state was better than the alliance with 
Sparta. The glory of his youth had been the freeing his 
country from Macedon : now he was ready, out of sheer 
rivalry, to put himself under the yoke again. He invited 
Antigonus to Greece, promisingthat the Achaians and their 
allies would receive him, if only Sparta might be put down. 

However, Cleomenes, on his recovery, most gallantly 
took Argos ; and soon after the Corinthians drove Aratus 
away, and surrendered to Sparta ; and the king showed his 



WORTHIES. 271 

generosity by protecting all the property of Aratus which 
he found there. But, however great his activity, his doom 
was sealed. What could 5,000 Spartans do against the 
whole force of Macedon ? 

Antigonus was soon at the isthmus ; and the recently- 
won towns surrendered, the allies deserted, and at Tegea, 
in the midst of a retreat, Cleomenes heard the tidings of 
the death of his ardently-beloved Agiatis. With the reso- 
lution he had learnt from the Stoic he commanded his 
countenance and voice, gave orders for the defence of 
Tegea, and then, marching all night, returned to his 
home 'and gave way to the passionate grief of his Greek 
nature, with his mother and his little children. 

Then, looking out upon his danger and difficulty, he 
saw that his only hope lay in an alliance with another 
Macedonian king, the rival of Antigonus, namely with 
Ptolemy, called Euergetes, the grandson of the Ptolemy 
who had secured Egypt. To him, therefore, Cleomenes 
applied for aid in men and money. The reply was a 
grievous one. Ptolemy would only send succour on con- 
dition of the young king, whose heart was still bleeding 
at the loss of his wife, sending his little children and his 
mother to Egypt as hostages for his fidelity. 

Cleomenes, who had none of the hardness of the old 
Spartan, was distressed exceedingly. The only hope of 
his country was in Ptolemy, yet he could not bear to send 
all he loved to the risks of a foreign land; and he could 
not even bring himself to speak of the proposal to his 
mother, till she, perceiving that something was on his 
mind, asked his friends what preyed on him. When 
he was thus forced to tell, the brave old lady laughed 
aloud. " Was this the thing," she said, " that you feared 
to tell me ? Why do you not put me on shipboard, and 
send this carcase where it may be most serviceable to 
Sparta, before age wastes it unprofitably here?" 



272 THE BOOK OF 

Thus, having given her free consent, Cratesiclea and 
her little grandsons were escorted on foot along the 
rocky road to Tsenarus by Cleomenes at the head of his 
whole army. There the temple of the sea-god Poseidon 
looked forth from the promontory on the deep, and into 
this the mother, son, and babes retired for their farewell. 
Cleomenes was almost broken-hearted, but his mother's 
spirit rose. " Go to, King of Sparta," she said ; " when 
we are without door, let none see us weep, or show any 
passion beneath the honour and dignity of Sparta ! That 
alone is in our own power, while success or failure 
depends on the gods. 7 ' 

And thus she parted with him with full composure, 
while he, with such calmness as Spartan temper and 
Stoical philosophy could enable him to wear, turned back 
to his desolate home to fight out the last struggle- 
During the winter Antigonus had received the title of 
Chief of the League, which Cleomenes had so nearly at- 
tained ; his statues had been set up, and even — after the 
profane fashion begun by Alexander in his exaltation 
and carried on by his successors — feasts were decreed in 
honour of this Macedonian king as a god, and Aratus, 
once a patriot, led the paean and the dance of this most 
corrupt idol. Such was the work of envy. 

Only Laconia held out, the passes all garrisoned in 
the spirit of Thermopylae, though little efficient aid even 
in money came from Egypt, only a letter from brave old 
Cratesiclea bidding her son do whatever was most pro- 
fitable to his country, without regard to offending Ptolemy, 
for the sake of an old woman and a child. Nor did his 
courage or energy fail for a moment. He raised money 
by letting the slaves buy their freedom, and enlisted 
2,000 troops from among them. With this reinforcement 
he surprised the Achaia^ town of Megalopolis. The 
inhabitants fled, and he offered to give them back their 



WORTHIES. 273 

city provided they would ally themselves with him ; 
but when they refused, he collected all the plunder, and 
laid the place completely in ruins, as a warning to other 
Peloponnesians. But in the next year, 221, when he in- 
vaded Argolis and beat down the standing corn with 
large wooden swords to cut off supplies from his enemies, 
he would not allow a place full of sacred monuments to 
be burnt, and expressed his grief for having done so 
much harm at Megalopolis. The long struggle was 
nearly over ; Antigonus had collected his troops for an 
invasion of Laconia, and Cleomenes, having fortified all 
the other passes, placed himself on the road near Sellasia, 
where the river yEnus flowed between two hills named 
Evas and Olympus. On the first he placed his young 
brother Eucleidas, on the other himself, and his cavalry 
in the middle. His numbers were 20,000, those of An- 
tigonus full a third more ; and among these was a young 
Megalopolitan named Philopcemen, who himself lived to 
be the last champion of his country, and must have 
bitterly lamented the rivalry that ranked the noblest 
spirits of Greece against one another, instead of binding 
them together. 

Young Eucleidas was not equal to his post. He did 
not avail himself of the advantage of his ground to charge 
down the hill on his enemies, but let himself be driven 
backwards upon the precipices, and there perished with 
his men. The cavalry were beaten by Philopcemen, who 
fought to the last, though both his legs were transfixed by 
a javelin ; and Cleomenes, making a desperate attempt on 
the phalanx, found the numbers and weight utterly im- 
penetrable ; his own 6,000 of the choicest Spartan troops 
were borne down, and, though they fought with despera- 
tion, only 200 survived. 

Cleomenes found himself one of the survivors, and rode 
with them to Sparta, where he stood still in the iriarket- 
T 



274 THE BOOK OF 

place, and firmly told the citizens that all was lost ; adding, 
that they had better receive Antigonus, and make the best 
terms they could, and that wherever he was he would en- 
deavour to serve Sparta ; they should decide whether 
his life or death were best for them. 

Perhaps there is no more pathetic scene in all history 
than that which Plutarch here gives — of all his fellow- 
fugitives welcomed by their wives, mothers, and children, 
running out to rejoice in their safety, take their arms, or 
bring them drink ; while the king, now utterly solitary, 
turned towards his empty and bereaved house to wait 
while the citizens decided his fate. A slave woman, taken 
at Megalopolis, came out to offer to wait on him and bring 
him drink ; but he would taste nothing, nor even enter 
beyond the portico ; only, being wearied out, he laid his 
arm sideways against a pillar, rested his bead against it, 
and leant there in silence until word came to him that 
the citizens wished him to provide for his own safety. 

Thereupon he stood up, and the last of the line of Her- 
cules slowly walked from the home of his fathers, and 
embarked at Gythium with a few friends. He had reigned 
fifteen years, and must have been a year or two above 
thirty when the noble designs of his youth were thus 
crushed, and himself driven out as a wanderer. His 
beloved city was kindly treated by Antigonus, who did 
not long survive the battle. 

Cleomenes touched at the island of ^Egilea, where 
Plutarch reports a curious dialogue between him and one 
of his followers, who, after condoling with him that 
" death in battle, which is the most glorious of all, we 
have let go," tried to persuade him that the only course 
for a brave man was to die by his own hand — far better 
than showing himself to his mother a defeated man, an 
exile, and a slave. 

But Cleomenes replied that he saw no bravery, only 



WORTHIES. 275 

cowardice, in such an action, and that " it was base to 
live or die only to ourselves ; " neither did he yet despair 
of his country. 

Thus, full of steadfastness, he reached Egypt, rejoined 
his mother, and was welcomed by Ptolemy Euergetes at 
Alexandria. Never was one city a greater contrast to 
another than Alexandria to Sparta ; not only sea with 
rock, but wealth with plainness, learning with ignorance, 
splendour with simplicity. The trade of Tyre and the 
philosophy of Athens alike had found a home there ; the 
choicest endowments of all nations were lavished there, 
in a setting of the strange old Egyptian marvels. The 
population of Jews, Greeks, Egyptians, Tyrians, swarmed 
in every street, intent on trade, on study, on philosophy, 
on pleasure ; and the court was a scene of wonderful 
luxury and splendour, full of every indulgence and refine- 
ment that East or West could produce — all that Cleomenes 
had learnt to despise. 

However, the old Macedonian vigour had not quite died 
out of Ptolemy Euergetes, who had been a brave warrior 
in his youth, and was able to appreciate Cleomenes. At 
first he was short and cold with the exiled son of a hun- 
dred kings, who would not cringe as a suppliant ; but after 
a while he was struck with the strong sense and judgment 
and brief Laconic irony of his guest, and saw that his 
grave self-contained equality of demeanour was a nobler 
thing than flattery. He treated him as a brother king, 
promised him men and ships to recover Greece, and 
allowed him a pension of twenty-four talents a year. The 
frugal Cleomenes and his mother used very little of this 
for their own needs, and with the rest maintained crowds 
of Greeks banished like themselves. 

Unfortunately his plans were only just formed when 
Euergetes died ; and his son, Ptolemy Philopator, was a 
miserable voluptuary, heedless of all but his vicious 
T 2 



276 THE BOOK OF 

pleasures and his selfish security. Once he did consult 
Cleomenes whether it was safe to leave his brother Magas 
alive and at large. 

" I should think/' said the Greek, " that it would be 
better for your security, if you had more brothers." 

"Yes," said one of the favourites, speaking for his 
master, abashed, " only the king can never trust the hired 
soldiers while Magas lives." 

" Never fear for that," said Cleomenes ; " among them 
are 3,000 Peloponnesians, whom I can rule with a nod." 

This was a communication to horrify the Egyptians, 
and Cleomenes was hated and dreaded from that day forth. 
Moreover, as the court grew more foolishly and wantonly 
depraved, he walked about in his simple garb, with his 
thoughts far away, and his stern sad face, till the Alexan- 
drians in their gaiety shuddered at him and called him a 
lion in a sheepfold. 

The army and fleet once promised were refused ; but 
when the tidings came of Antigonus' death, he longed to 
depart with only his own friends. The king would not 
see him, the ministers thought it dangerous to let him go, 
and he found himself watched and kept, a prisoner at 
large. 

Just at this time, when he was burning to be at home, 
and was walking on the quay, straining his eyes towards 
his beloved Greece, he was saluted by a man named Nice- 
goras, of whom he had bought an estate, but had been 
prevented by his misfortunes from paying for it. He 
now asked what brought him to Egypt. 

" I have brought war-horses for the king," he said. 

" Dancing girls would be more to the purpose," bitterly 
said Cleomenes. 

The man applied again for the payment of his debt, 
and, finding that Cleomenes was penniless, went in 
malice and reported his irony to the minister, and the 



WORTHIES. 277 

two concerted an accusation against him that he was 
plotting to seize the island of Cyrene. 

On this the king ordered him and his friends to be 
invited into a large room and there kept. At first he 
fancied it a mere freak of the king, and endured with 
patient scorn as usual ; but having followed a visitor to 
the door, he overheard a sharp reprimand to the guard 
for not " better watching such a savage beast" 

This seems to have maddened him, and at the first 
opportunity, when the guards were asleep in the heat of 
noon, he and his friends, thirteen in number, rushed 
furiously out with drawn swords into the streets, crying 
" Liberty I" with perhaps some frantic hope that Greek 
blood might be stirred by the cry, and at least they 
might fight their way to a ship. But finding that no one 
stirred in their cause, and that they were hemmed in, 
though no one dared to touch them, they did that which 
in a cooler moment Cleomenes had denounced as cowardly 
— they fell on their own swords. One, named Panteus, re- 
mained to the last, composed the body of his king, kissed 
him, and then killed himself over the body. 

Even Cleomenes' little son was infected by the frenzy, 
and, running to the top of the house, threw himself down, 
and was taken up severely bruised, and lamenting at not 
having killed himself like his father. But in the midst of 
the grief of Cratesiclea came tidings that the savage 
Ptolemy had commanded that all the women and children 
should be put to death. Among them was the young 
bride of Panteus, who had actually fled from home to 
join him after the battle of Sellasia. She was tall, strong, 
and very beautiful, and she supported Cratesiclea on her 
way to death. The high-spirited matron had no fears, 
but only begged to die before her grandchildren. The 
soldiers, however, denied this last request, and killed 
both the little boys before her eyes. She cried out, " Oh, 



278 THE BOOK OF 

children ! whither are you gone ? " and so died with them. 
Panteus' wife laid out the body, then bound her robes 
round her own limbs and held out her neck. 

Cleomenes' body was flayed and hung on a cross, until, 
to the general amaze, a serpent was seen coiled round it. 
This portent so struck the. Egyptians that the body not 
only received due rites, but was by Ptolemy's command 
treated as that of a divine hero. 

So closed the Spartan history ; so ended the long lines 
of the twin sons of Hercules, each with a true hero ; so 
piteously ended the brave efforts of two kingly youths to 
bring back valour and virtue ; so closed a young life 
which, but for the one act of almost justifiable violence on 
the ephors, and for the last frenzy that belied his previous 
noble patience, was as grand and stainless as that of any 
of the great heroic figures of ancient time. 

Tender and brave, resolute and vigorous, perhaps the 
Stoic philosophy never had a better representative than 
in Cleomenes, last King of Sparta. 



WORTHIES. 279 



SCIPIO AFRICANUS. 

B.C. 234—183. 

In the year 218, four years after Cleomenes perished in 
Egypt, a young Roman of noble blood set out on his first 
campaign — immediately after the family festival which 
always took place when a youth reached his seventeenth 
year, put off the boyish tunic and the bulla or round gold 
amulet he had hitherto worn, put on the full, long, white 
woollen toga of a citizen, became liable to serve in the 
army, and was enrolled by his individual name among 
the members of his family and clan. 

The clan to which the boy belonged was the Cornelian, 
a very old patrician race of the purest Roman lineage ; 
and the subdivision or family in which he was born was 
further named Scipio, or "the Staff/' in recollection, it was 
said, of a young Cornelius who was often seen acting as a 
staff to his blind old father. The name conferred on the 
youth was Publius, the same which was already borne by 
his father, as in fact it seems to have been always chosen 
for the eldest son of the house of Scipio. Young Publius 
Cornelius Scipio was bred up to more of learning and 
cultivation than the rugged old Romans of two genera- 
tions back; he belonged to a family in easy circum- 
stances, with a house in Rome built round a square 
court, with an altar to the household gods in the midst, 



28o THE BOOK OF 

and little dens for slaves, clients, and shopkeepers clus- 
tered outside on the walls. He was taught reading, 
writing, and public speaking, and the Greek language, 
although the custom of keeping Greek tutors for young 
men had not then set in. And in the Campus Martius, 
or Field of Mars, he was wont to be exercised among all 
the other youths of Rome in all soldierly exercises, using 
the sword and spear, and manoeuvring on foot and on 
horseback with discipline and regularity, but especially 
on horseback, as this was the manner in which his patri- 
cian birth entitled him to serve. In all these he had 
borne his full part ; and he was further remarkable among 
the lads of his own age for a deep devotional feeling, 
which led him to seek for divine direction in whatever 
he did. At any great turn in his life, or on any fresh 
undertaking, he was wont to climb the steep hill of the 
Capitol, and, entering the temple of the great sky-god 
Jupiter, or Diespiter (father of day), there to remain in 
deep thought and prayer until, as he deemed, the divine 
will was made known to him. And when we mark the 
tenor of his course through life, we can scarcely doubt 
that the true Father of Lights whom he thus ignorantly 
worshipped guided this honest and upright heart in the 
paths of obedience, justice, mercy, and purity. 

Young Publius' first campaign promised to be a gallant 
one, for he was to accompany his father, who had newly 
been elected consul, and had chosen Spain as the place 
of his command in the war that had just been proclaimed 
in defence of the allies of Rome. 

This war was with the great Phoenician, or, as the 
Romans shortened the word, Punic, city of Carthage, 
originally an offshoot from Tyre and Sidon, planted on the 
rich northern shore of Africa, but, having flourished 
unscathed while the parent cities were taken by one 
Eastern conqueror after another, now far more rich and 



WORTHIES. 281 

owerful than they had ever been, and the one dangerous 
rival of Greece. 

Probably we shall form the best notion of the Phce- 
licians by thinking of them as greatly resembling the 
Jews in language, habits, and customs, and in the frame- 
work of their character ; but as Jews without the Law 
and the Prophets, with no knowledge or aspirations 
towards a Perfect God, and instead, with a religion in- 
finitely more mischievous than that of Greece or Rome. 
The faith of these great states was the outcome of natu- 
ral and traditional religion acting on thoughtful minds 
and honest consciences ; but there was an element of 
wickedness in the very foundation of the Phoenician 
faith, which seems as if the Evil Spirit had influenced 
its formation. Baal, the sun-god, and Ashtaroth, the 
queen of heaven, or moon-goddess, were supposed to be 
adored by absolutely criminal acts ; while "Moloch, horrid 
king, besmeared with blood," was propitiated by placing 
live infants between the brazen hands of his colossal 
statue to be dropped into the furnace beneath. Thus 
all the sins against which the Israelites were unceasingly 
warned grew unchecked among the Phoenicians — the 
avarice, the treachery, and the sensuality ; so that not 
only the Scripture, but the heathen nations of the West, 
condemned them for their want of honour and morality, 
their cruelty and their baseness, and " Punic faith'' 
became a byword. 

They had to the full the aptitude of the Jews for gar- 
dening, farming, bargaining, and likewise for the higher 
branches of commerce, so that wherever they fixed them- 
selves the country became beautiful for tillage ; their 
streets were full of shops, and their harbours of merchant 
ships, which carried on the greater part of the trade of 
the whole world ; and on this account they established 
settlements, which soon became cities, all along the 



282 THE BOOK OF 

Mediterranean — places where native produce could be 
collected and exchanged for treasures brought from other 
places. There was none of the love of glory and prowess 
for their own sake that actuated the Greeks and Romans 
in the Phoenician nation ; they preferred peace for the be- 
nefit of their trade, but neither greatly loved nor esteemed 
military glory, though they were no cowards ; as sailors 
they were the boldest in existence ; and they would fight 
doggedly on occasion, as the Romans had already learnt 
in a war which lasted from 264 to 241, and ended only 
three years before the birth of the young Scipio. 

The Carthaginian settlements were dotted about over 
the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean, where also 
were a good many Greek colonies ; and as the Greeks, in 
the decay of their nation, were turning their minds to 
commerce, there was plenty of rivalship and many quar- 
rels. The Greeks having no one in their parent state 
capable of aiding them, asked the help of the Romans ; 
and the first Punic war had resulted in the expulsion of 
the Carthaginians from Sicily, an offence that they remem- 
bered with great bitterness. Twenty-three years had since 
passed, and there had been a great civil war at Carthage 
among the elders and judges (who seem to have had the 
same sort of power as the persons called by similar titles in 
the Bible). When this was over, however, the great family 
of Hamilcar Barca, or Barak, "the Lightning Chief," 
the only Carthaginians who had any real warlike fire or 
passion for enterprise, began to push forward the dominion 
of Carthage in Spain, which was then a region filled with 
savage Celtic tribes, fringed round with Greek and Phoe- 
nician colonies, attracted by the fertile slopes towards the 
west, and by the silver and other mineral wealth of the 
mountains. 

Hamilcar Barca had taken his little son, Hannibal, or 
"the Grace of Baal," with him to Spain at nine years old, 



WORTHIES. 2 8 3 

after having first made him swear to be at enmity with 
the Romans as long as he should live. That oath was 
taken the very year that young Publius Scipio was born ; 
and in the meantime Hamilcar, after distinguishing him- 
self greatly, had died ; but the oppression of himself, his 
son, and brother-in-law, on the Greek cities was so severe 
that they entreated aid from Rome, war had been de- 
clared against Carthage, and all preparations were being 
made. 

Three armies were raised ; one to keep guard under a 
praetor in Italy, one to go to Sicily under the other consul, 
Tiberius Sempronius Longus, and perhaps to make a 
descent upon Carthage, and the third, under Publius 
Cornelius Scipio, to meet the enemy in Spain. This, 
however, seems to have been thought the least imminent 
matter ; Scipio's army was the last to be raised, and 
it was not till late in the summer that he was ready 
to set out with two legions, each numbering 6,000 men, 
156,000 Italian allies, and 60 quinquiremes, or great 
galleys, of five benches of rowers, one above the other. 
These met Scipio and his land army at Pisa, where a 
rumour was confirmed which had already reached him 
on his march, that the audacious young Hannibal was 
actually preparing to march round the gulf, traverse two 
mountain chains, and descend upon Italy from the Alps. 

Scipio could hardly believe in so wild an enterprise, 
but he embarked his men at Pisa, expecting to be in time 
to meet the Carthaginian leader in Spain and turn him 
back ; but his troops suffered much from sea-sickness, 
and when at length he arrived at the great Greek colony 
of Massilia (now Marseilles), for Roman navigation did 
not even venture to go direct from Italy to Spain, he 
found the place in consternation. Hannibal, with 50,000 
picked troops and 9,000 horse, besides elephants, was 
across the Pyrenees, and in Gaul. 



284. THE BOOK OF 

Scipio, therefore, landed his men on the banks of the 
Rhone, intending to give them a short respite to recover 
from the voyage, and then to march up the river and fight 
a battle when the enemy tried to cross it. But another 
rumour came in through the Gauls that, on the very day of 
his landing, this wondrously active foe had actually crossed 
the Rhone much higher up than he had expected, and 
beaten off the natives, who, being attached to the Massil- 
ians, had tried to oppose their passage. Still incredulous, 
Scipio sent out 300 horsemen, guided by a body of Gauls, 
to ascertain the truth. By and by they came in sight of 
a body of horsemen, dark lithe figures, clad in white 
garments with glittering coats of mail. These were the 
Numidians, the native population of North Africa, the 
same whom we now know as Moors, and who have always 
been famous for their grace and lightness as riders and 
for their skill in wielding their long slender lances. There 
were several petty kingdoms of these in alliance with or 
else tributary to Carthage, and they supplied a large por- 
tion of Hannibal's cavalry. The two reconnoitring par- 
ties encountered, and the shock of the heavy Roman 
horse was such as to overwhelm the lighter Africans, full 
160 of whom were left dead, while the others galloped 
away at headlong speed on their light Barbary steeds, 
followed closely by the Romans, who only drew rein 
when they had seen the fugitives received into a great 
fortified camp, formed after the regular Greek fashion, 
and upon the east side of the Rhone. 

They could only come back to the consul with the 
account, who at once decided to give up the attempt to 
come up with Hannibal in Gaul, and to return himself to 
Italy by sea, and take the command of the army that was 
already in the northern province under the prsetor, Lucius 
Manlius Vulso, so as to meet the Carthaginians on their 
descent from the Alps, and take them when exhausted by 



WORTHIES. 285 

their journey, if indeed they ever succeeded in traversing 
what had hitherto been deemed a barrier impenetrable to 
all save the light-footed and savage mountaineers of GauL 
Meanwhile, he sent the consular army he had raised into 
Spain, under the command of his brother, Cnaeus Corne- 
lius Scipio, commonly called Calvus, or " the Bald," so as 
to keep the Carthaginians occupied there, and prevent 
them from concentrating their whole force upon Italy ; — 
and to this measure Rome probably owed her preservation. 

The whole of what* we now call Lombardy and Pied- 
mont was then known as Cisalpine Gaul, and was in- 
habited by Celts who, though subject to Rome, and fur- 
nishing large contingents as horsemen and javelin men to 
her armies, were far from patient of her dominion, and 
were ready to rise and take part with any enemy of hers. 
To keep these in check, Scipio felt his own presence 
required ; and he therefore took ship with only his son and 
his immediate attendants, and, landing at Pisa, hastened 
to assume the command of the praetorian army of 25,000 
men at Placentia. He had scarcely arrived before he 
learnt that Hannibal had safely performed that wonder of 
history, his passage of the Alps, and was actually in Italy 
with 12,000 African and 8,000 Spanish foot and 6,000 
horse, besides the elephants, and that the Gauls were 
everywhere favourable to him. 

Scipio pushed on to meet him, so as to prevent a general 
rising of the Gauls, and throwing a bridge of boats 
across the Ticinus, he found himself moving on a parallel 
line with Hannibal in the angle between that river and 
the Eridanus. Both generals rode out at the head of their 
cavalry to reconnoitre, and, as before on the Rhone, 
there was an encounter ; but on this occasion Hannibal 
had with him his Carthaginian horse, who were heavily 
armed, and equal to resist the shock of the Roman 
horsemen. 



2S6 THE BOOK OF 

Scipio himself was grievously wounded, and while his 
troop were staggered by his fall, the heavy Carthaginian 
cavalry thundered on them in front, and they were sud- 
denly hailed upon in flank and rear by the Numidian 
darts, as the swift horsemen wheeled round them, launch- 
ing their javelins, or cutting down with their sabres who- 
ever fell in their way. The startled and discomfited 
Romans lost all semblance of order and fled wildly to 
their camp, pursued by the Numidians like swarms of 
angry wasps, while the wounded consul would have been 
left to his fate, but for the brave young son who stayed by 
him, upheld him, defended him, and at length brought 
him into the camp, sorely hurt, but still able to think for 
his army. 

The cavalry was as good as lost, and the consul there- 
fore decided that the camp must be broken up at once, 
since without horsemen, and in a country fast becoming 
hostile, it would have been impossible to march safely so 
near the enemy. Therefore the army moved at once, 
crossing the Ticinus, and leaving 600 men to destroy the 
bridge of boats. They succeeded in doing this before 
Hannibal came up and made them prisoners ; and this 
delayed his advance, so that there was time for Scipio to 
be joined by his fellow- consul, Sempronius, who had been 
summoned from Sicily, and brought a fresh army, before 
Hannibal arrived in front of the Roman army on the 
opposite side of the little river Trebia. 

It was now far on in the winter, and Scipio was of 
opinion that it would be the wisest measure to watch and 
harass the enemy, and let them waste under the incle- 
mency of the season, while the Romans were trained to 
meet their mode of warfare, and the Gauls grew tired of 
them as guests. Sempronius, however, was eager to fight 
a battle both before his term of consulship should expire 
and likewise whilst the entire glory of the day would be 



WORTHIES. 287 

his own, since his colleague was still disabled by his 
wound, and forced to remain within the camp. 

The two armies were five miles apart, with the pebbly 
bed of the Trebia between, a watercourse almost dry in 
summer, but in winter filled with a broad and swift tor- 
rent. Here in the early morning a skirmish between the 
light troops on either side began, and Sempronius, eager 
for the battle, ordered out the legions to support the 
cavalry before they had had time to eat, and caused them 
to wade through the river, which, swollen and chilled 
by a recent snowstorm, reached up to their breasts. 
Drenched and shivering, they were drawn up on the 
bank, while their opponents had eaten their morning 
meal, oiled their limbs, and put on their armour by their 
fires ; and, moreover, Hannibal had placed an ambush in 
a narrow ravine under his younger brother, Mago, ready 
to fall on the enemy at the critical moment. The darts 
and arrows of the Roman light infantry, who had long ago 
begun the battle, were soon used up, and they were 
quickly driven back ; the cavalry were beaten by the 
African horse and elephants ; and though the legions 
fought with all their steadiness and hardihood, the sudden 
onset of Mago and his ambush broke them, the elephants 
closed in on them, and the rout was complete. Those 
who retained some order marched under Sempronius 
straight on for Placentia, while the rest dashed back 
through the river to the camp. The enemy would have 
followed them, but the cold, which had but numbed the 
hardy Romans for a time, was absolutely fatal to the more 
southerly men of Carthage, and many men and horses 
perished, as well as nearly all the elephants brought 
across the mountains with such frightful labour. Scipio, 
on learning the flight of his comrade, assumed the com- 
mand of the fugitives, and a second time left the camp by 
night, led the remnant of the army across the river, and 



288 THE BOOK OF 

passing unseen the entrenchments of his enemies, arrived 
at Placentia. 

Thence the dejected Romans retreated in two divisions, 
Scipio to Ariminium and Sempronius into Etruria ; while 
the winter set in so severely that Hannibal, who at- 
tempted to cross the Apennines, was fairly beaten back 
by the wind, which rushed so furiously through the gorges 
that neither man nor beast could stand against it, more 
of his poor elephants were destroyed by the cold, and he 
himself became blind in one eye. 

In this respite Sempronius returned to Rome, and held 
the election for the two new consuls of the incoming year, 
217. As soon as the newly-elected consul, Servilius Gemi- 
nus, arrived at Ariminium, Scipio, with the dignity of pro- 
consul, departed to take the command in Spain, where 
his brother Cnaeus was doing good service ; but he left 
behind him his brave young son Publius, who was already 
an officer in the cohorts of horse attached to the legions 
at Ariminium. 

Meantime, the other consul, Consul Flaminius, impru- 
dently meeting Hannibal in the defile of Lake Thrasy- 
menus, there perished, with the loss of all his army, and 
Rome was in an agony of grief, though neither of terror 
nor despair. To supply the loss of the consul the wise 
and prudent Quintus Fabius was elected Dictator. His 
principle was to avoid pitched battles, and in their stead 
to watch and harass the enemy, laying all waste before 
him in the hope of starving him out ; but this system 
was very distasteful to the Romans, who were always 
anxious to try their fortune in the field, were suffering 
much from the devastation of their lands, and could not 
bear to see Hannibal march all the way from Cisalpine 
Gaul to Samnium loaded with plunder and prisoners. 

Their two fresh consuls of 216, Lucius ^Emilius Paullus 
and Caius Terentius Varro, were to follow an entirely 



WORTHIES. 289 

different system. They were thorough representatives of 
the two orders — ^milius a proud, refined, and much dis- 
liked patrician, but a good officer ; and Varro a butcher's 
son, able but impetuous, and always inclined to pull 
against his noble colleague. It was scarcely well to send 
out two such adverse spirits together, at so critical a 
moment, to take the command of the army on alternate 
days. 

Hannibal had just come out of his winter quarters and 
taken the city of Cannae, on the river Aufidius, containing 
great stores of grain and commanding all the corn- 
growing country around, so that the harvest lay at his 
mercy. It was the end of June, when the wheat was 
nearly ripe, that young Scipio, who had, though only 
nineteen years old, become tribune of a legion, a rank 
answering to that of colonel of a regiment, went out in 
the great army of 90,000 men, which was led by the two 
consuls, to meet the enemy. Probably he owed his early 
promotion, not only to his personal merits, but to the 
grievous losses Rome had already sustained, for the 
legions were no longer of hardy, practised soldiers, but 
of the lowest of the people, too poor to arm themselves 
perfectly. 

7<£milius would fain have followed the policy of Fabius, 
or, at least, if there was to be a battle, have withdrawn 
among the hills, where Hannibal's dreadful cavalry could 
not be so effective, more especially since the Roman horse 
had already suffered so much that they were more crippled 
in this branch than in any other respect. But Varro, 
commanding on alternate days, forced on a meeting on 
the banks of the Aufidius, and, on the morning of a long 
summer day, hoisted the red flag, the signal of battle, on 
his tent. 

The legions, drawn up in close order, stood in the 
centre, the red and white crests of dyed horsehair rising 
U 



290 THE BOOK OF 

high above their helmets, and their shields almost touch- 
ing one another. The front of their line was very narrow, 
the flanks lengthened, and on Varro's word to advance 
they were driven on with tremendous impetus through 
the very centre of Hannibal's array, like a bold hand 
thrust in to split open a tree. But if the hand cannot 
at once rend asunder the wood, the recoil will crush it 
with fatal force ; and thus it befell the legions. Their 
cavalry, all of young patricians, had been, as usual, dis- 
persed by the Spaniards and Numidians ; and these now 
rode in on their flanks. There was no room to fight ; the 
Romans stood literally wedged into the midst of their 
enemies, unable to fight or retreat, struggling blindly, as 
they were hewn down on all sides with an unexampled 
butchery, neither asking nor receiving quarter. 

Publius Scipio — fighting step by step — found himself 
at last, with some few men, clear of the horrible throng, 
and, well accustomed now to lost battles, for this was his 
third within two years, he restored some sort of order, 
and made his way to the town of Canusium, where he 
remained to take breath and gather the fugitives, who 
came in on foot or on horseback, singly or in parties, 
with direful histories of slaughter and ruin. Lentulus, 
another tribune, came in telling how he had met with 
the consul ^Emilius, sitting on a stone, covered with blood, 
and how he replied, to all entreaties to try to escape, that 
he had no mind to answer to the Senate for this day's 
work, nor to accuse his colleague, but that Lentulus must 
carry word to Rome to prepare for a siege, and tell Fabius 
that he had tried to follow his advice to the last. There- 
upon a flood of flying Romans and pursuing enemies 
swept Lentulus away, and he believed yEmilius to have 
fallen under their darts. Of the other consul nothing 
was known, even by the 6,000 men who marched in last, 
having cut their way out of the camp, where they with as 



WORTHIES. 29I 

many more had been left in reserve to attack the Cartha- 
ginian camp while the battle was being fought. 

Out of 90,000 men only 10,000 remained, and no officer 
higher in rank than the four tribunes who found them- 
selves together, Scipio, Lentulus, a youth called Appius 
Claudius Pulcher, or " the Fair," and one other. There 
was nothing to hinder Hannibal from thundering at the 
gates of Rome! The legionaries elected Scipio and 
Claudius to command them ; but the other young patri- 
cians, in terror and despair, proposed to make for the 
coast, embark for Spain, and there join Scipio's father, 
who was gaining great advantages. 

In the midst of their plans, however, Publius Scipio 
stood among them : " I swear," said he, drawing his 
sword, * never to forsake the Republic, nor to suffer any 
of her citizens to do so. I call the great Jupiter to wit- 
ness this my oath." Then turning to the young gentle- 
man whom he knew to be the chief of the despairing 
conspirators, he added, " You, Metellus, and all present, 
take the same oath, or not a man of you shall escape this 
sword." 

Ashamed and dismayed, each obeyed ; and this resolu- 
tion prevented a defection that would have been more 
fatal to Rome than even the slaughter of Cannae. And 
ere long Varro appeared at Canusium, having escaped 
with seventy horse to Venusia. After a few days of ter- 
rible suspense it was found that Hannibal had not ad- 
vanced on Rome, but was remaining in Apulia, expecting 
all the Italians to rise and join him, and trying to secure 
the south of Italy, whence he could best communicate 
with Carthage. There was time, therefore, for the broken 
forces to rally, and though a whole bushel of gold rings 
from the corpses of patricians had been gathered from 
the field of Cannse, still the spirit of Rome had not died 
with them, and there was a brave little remnant of the 
U 2 



292 THE BOOK OF 

army left at Canusium, under charge of Marcus Marcellus 
and Publius Scipio, while Varro went back to face boldly 
the ordeal that ^Emilius had shrunk from. So far from 
blaming him, the whole Senate came out to meet him 
and thank him for not having despaired of the Republic, 
knowing that to bear a failure is a greater thing than to 
gain a success. 

Thenceforth the maxims of wary old Fabius, which 
^Emilius had in vain tried to follow, were carried out, 
and, instead of giving battle, the Romans watched and 
harassed Hannibal, besetting him wherever he went. A 
winter in the luscious climate of Campania, amid the 
various luxuries of the city of Capua, was thought to have 
demoralized that terrible army of his ; and from the 
jealousies which prevailed at Carthage, as well as the 
employment given to the Punic armies in Spain by the 
two Scipiones, he never received reinforcements to make 
up for his losses in the march and in his four battles ; — so 
that, though he continued in Italy, the peril of Rome was 
never again so imminent as when Publius Scipio pre- 
vented the desertion of her young nobles after the battle 
of Cannae. 

That the Romans appreciated his behaviour on this 
occasion was shown by their electing him four years later, 
in his twenty-third year, curule aedile, the first magistracy 
to which a patrician was eligible, and which made him 
superintendent of the paving and cleansing of the streets, 
of the selling of slaves, and of some of the grand religious 
athletic exercises. He was still under the legal age, 
though probably by this time married to Emilia, the 
daughter of his old general, who had died at Cannae ; but 
when the censors objected to him, he replied, that, if the 
Romans chose him, that gave him sufficient age. 

His year of office was scarcely over before tidings 
arrived from Spain that his father and uncle, who had 



WORTHIES. 293 

been gaining great successes for the last five years, had 
been betrayed by the Spaniards, and both killed in two 
battles following immediately one after the other, and 
that the remnant of the army was held together by their 
lieutenant, Titus Fonteius, and an eques, or plebeian rich 
enough to serve on horseback, called Lucius Marcius. 

The praetor, Caius Claudius Nero, who had been greatly 
distinguishing himself in the siege of Capua, whence the 
Carthaginians were at length forced, was at once sent out 
to take the command : but the Romans determined on 
sending a larger force ; and as the consuls must remain 
to watch Hannibal, that a proconsul must be selected to 
command it. 

The treachery of the Spaniards and the forlorn aspect 
of affairs had so discouraged the Romans, that no man 
offered himself, until the eldest son of the slaughtered pro- 
consul, though only twenty-four years old, stood forth in 
the rostrum overhanging the Forum, and declared himself 
convinced that there was still a way to retrieve the cause 
of Rome in Spain, and that he could do it, if they would 
elect him in his father's place. No doubt he had received 
letters and messages from his father which had given him 
some knowledge of the situation ; and, moreover, he had 
held his mysterious communings with the deity in the 
temple of Jupiter : at any rate, young as he was, and 
untried save by terrible reverses, the Romans unanimously 
elected Publius Cornelius Scipio proconsul of Spain. 

He took with him his only brother, by name Lucius, to 
whom he was much attached. Lucius Scipio is the only 
one of the family of whose features we have any repre- 
sentation, and that only on a coin, which shows a spirited 
though not very handsome head, bearded, with parted 
lips, a raised brow, and rather retreating forehead, not 
very high. The great Publius is, however, said to have 
been a man with fine features and engaging expression, 



294 THE BOOK OF 

and long hair flowing down his back, of goodly presence, 
and no doubt the fire of genius looked forth through his 
eager eyes, and inspired both terror and confidence ; for 
he seems to have been as much dreaded and hated by one 
party as beloved and esteemed by the other. His was a 
strong and determined nature, always going straight to 
the point, and little inclined to heed the many legal checks 
that the Roman constitution had invented to prevent the 
encroachments of the ambitious, but which often clogged 
the actions of the patriotic ; and thus he was always most 
popular when furthest from home. 

His other companions were his earliest and nearest 
friend, Caius Lselius, to whom he gave the command of 
the fleet of thirty quinquiremes, and Marcus Junius Silanus, 
who was to be pro-praetor in the place of Nero. Coasting 
along, as he had begun doing with his father seven years 
before, he arrived at Emporiae in the autumn of 210, a 
colony of the Massilian Greeks on the Spanish side of the 
Pyrenees, and there, disembarking his seasick soldiers, 
marched them by land to Tarraco, where he spent the 
winter in treating with the Spaniards, or Keltiberians, a 
grave, resolute, but indolent people, not very unlike the 
same nation at the present day. Like the Gauls, they 
were divided into clans, and had petty chiefs : but the 
Greek and Carthaginian colonies had taught them some 
of the habits of civilization, and they grew wheat, olives, 
and vines, besides working their silver mines in the Sierra 
Morena and its spurs towards the south. 

The coast of the* Mediterranean was thickly studded 
with colonies. Those to the north of the river Ebro, 
being Greek, held with Rome ; those to the south were 
Punic, — and the chief of these was the great seaport of 
New Carthage, or, as it is still called, Cartagena. On 
this place Scipio determined to make his first attack as 
swiftly and suddenly as possible ; and as soon as the 



WORTHIES. 295 

winter storms were over, he sent forward his fleet, while 
he conveyed his army in a wonderful march of a single 
week to the borders of the narrow neck of land that alone 
connected the city with the continent, for the marsh 
which now lies behind the city was then made a lagoon, 
filled with seawater, and only crossed by an isthmus. 

Just as Scipio had fortified his camp the Carthaginians 
made a sally along the isthmus, and there was a sharp 
battle, ending by their being forced back into the town, 
while the Romans planted their ladders and tried to 
scale the walls ; but the ladders were too short, and 
evening obliged them to give up the attempt. Next 
morning Scipio told them that Neptune, the god of the 
sea, had appeared to him and promised his help ; and it 
seemed a fulfilment of the dream when the ebb tide, 
slight as it was, left the bed of the lagoon uncovered, 
so that five hundred men could be sent across it to at- 
tempt the walls in another place, while Scipio himself, 
with the main body, stormed the walls again with ladders, 
now lengthened. 

The five hundred found a spot where no defenders were 
stationed, climbed the walls, rushed to the gate, threw it 
open, and the Roman army poured in, slaughtering every 
creature that came in their way, till Scipio, with a thou- 
sand picked men, having obtained the formal surrender 
of the citadel and governor, made a signal to stop the 
carnage, for he was a man of much greater humanity 
than was usual with Romans. His discipline forced the 
soldiers to leave the houses, and, putting all the spoil 
together in the market-place, return to their posts and 
wait for the morning's distribution of the plunder. 

The next day he reviewed his prisoners. The free 
citizens he restored uninjured to their homes, and the 
mechanics and artisans were promised full liberty when 
the war was over, if they would serve Rome faithfully 



296 THE BOOK OF 

in the meantime ; and the same promise was given to the 
fishermen and sailors whom he drafted into the fleet. 
Eighteen Carthaginian galleys were in the harbour, and 
he manned these for Rome, placing in each vessel a 
crew consisting of two- thirds of Romans and one of the 
prisoners. Quantities of corn were likewise taken, stores 
of arms and abundance of treasure, all which he sent 
off by Laslius to Rome, requesting to have some supplies 
returned to him. The Carthaginian officers were likewise 
sent to Rome as prisoners. But there were taken at the 
same time a great number of hostages kept by the Cartha- 
ginians to secure the fidelity of the clans of Keltiberians. 
A tall, majestic-looking lady came forward, and, with 
tears in her eyes, said she was the wife of Mardonius 
the chieftain, now in the camp of the enemy, and had 
been seized with her daughters and nieces by Asdrubal 
Gisco, the Carthaginian commander in Spain, for her 
husband's non-payment of a debt. She hoped, she said, 
that the Romans would be more civil than the Carthagi- 
nians. She was too high-spirited to utter further com- 
plaints, but Scipio assured her that his own sisters should 
not be more carefully protected than she and her maidens. 
Another beautiful young girl among the hostages was 
betrothed to a chief named Allucius. He sent for him 
and for her father, who brought a great ransom for her ; 
but Scipio immediately handed it over with the lady as 
her dowry to Allucius : and the consequence was that the 
young chief joined him with 1,400 horsemen, such as had 
been so terrible on the other side. The other hostages, 
500 in number, received presents, and were told to write 
word that they should be returned to their homes if their 
kindred would become allies of Rome. Meantime he 
took them back with him to Tarraco, treating them with 
great kindness, and restoring them as fast as their clans 
-£. The Spanish lady's husband and his brother 



WORTHIES. 297 

deserted Asdrubal, and brought their very powerful tribe 
to join him ; and though the Carthaginian commanders 
contemptuously declared that the young Roman was proud 
of his one town, but that they would quickly teach him to 
remember his father and uncle, they soon felt that the 
magic of his name was such that no Keltiberian army 
could be trusted when he was in the field. 

Another Asdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, had come 
into Spain to collect reinforcements and supplies for the 
army in Italy, and hoped to gather the Spanish tribes 
once so warmly attached to his family, and to fight a 
battle so as to crush Scipio before returning to Italy. 
Scarcely a Spaniard, however, would stir; nil were devoted 
to the gracious and kindly Roman ; and Scipio advanced 
to the banks of the Guadalquivir in such strength as to 
force him to retreat to save himself from being stormed 
in his camp. Some accounts declare that he was defeated 
in a great battle ; but the above was the report of the 
matter given in his old age by Laelius, the greatest friend 
of Scipio, and is, of course, the more trustworthy. Asdru- 
bal retreated into the west, crossed the Tagus, and col- 
lected the more northerly and westerly Spaniards, who 
had not yet heard of the beneficence of Scipio, crossed the 
Pyrenees, made his way over the Alps, and was full on 
his way to join his brother when he was encountered on 
the river Metaurus by Claudius Nero, who was now 
consul : his army was cut to pieces, and he himself died in 
the battle. Nero, a true member of the fair-faced, cruel- 
hearted, Claudian family, caused Asdrubal's head to be 
cast down in scorn before his brother's camp. 

Meantime the retreat of Asdrubal and the kindness of 
Scipio had such an effect on the Keltiberians of the east 
and south that they, with one voice, as they stood round 
him, saluted Scipio, as their king. But royalty was a 
hateful sound to Roman ears, and though thanking them 



298 THE BOOK OF 

heartily, he made answer, that he valued no title so much 
as that of Imperator, or victorious commander, which his 
soldiers gave him, and if they thought a royal soul the 
grandest endowment of man they might think of him as 
they pleased, but never call him king. 

Hannibal's other brother, Mago, was also in Spain, 
whither he had brought troops from the Balearic isles, 
as being less likely to desert than the Keltiberians. A 
Numidian prince, named Massinissa, who had been 
educated at Carthage, had likewise brought a large rein- 
forcement of his fierce horsemen : and these uniting with 
Asdrubal Gisco, determined to meet the young Roman 
imperator, crush his presumption, and restore the alle- 
giance of the Spaniards. They numbered altogether 
70,000 foot, 4,000 horse, and 32 elephants ; while Scipio* 
between Romans and natives, had only 45,000 foot and 
3,000 horse ; nor did the fate of his father and uncle dis- 
pose him to feel secure that the fickle men of Spain 
might not fail him in his need. He therefore endeavoured 
to avail himself of them more for show than for use ; and 
after having in the evening reviewed his army, with them 
on the wings and the Romans in the centre, he suddenly 
altered their disposition in the night, placing them in the 
centre and the Romans on the wings, so as to discon- 
cert the counter-arrangement of the enemy. He himself 
took the command of the right wing, giving the other 
to Silanus ; and after the whole line had advanced 
evenly together, he caused the centre to halt, while the 
two wings rushed forward with the greatest impetus and 
utterly defeated and destroyed those opposed to them, 
after which they were free to fall on the best troops in the 
centre, who made such a brave resistance that Scipio was 
forced to throw himself on them, sword in hand, before 
his men succeeded in breaking them. Then, trodden 
down by their own elephants, and slaughtered on either 



WORTHIES. 299 

side, they fled to the camp only 6,000 in number ; and 
there Scipio would have pursued them, but that a violent 
storm forced his troops to seek shelter : and in the night 
they retreated, some to their garrisons, and others em- 
barked at Gades for Africa. This great battle was 
fought, B.C. 206, at a place called Silpia, probably in 
the province of Seville, but the spot cannot be identified. 
It gave Scipio the supremacy of Spain ; and when he sent 
his brother Lucius with tidings to Rome, it was to say 
that there was now not an enemy in the field between the 
Pyrenees and the Pillars of Hercules. Such had been 
his work in four years, while he was still under twenty- 
eight. 

Massinissa, before returning to Africa, is said to have 
seen the pro-praetor Silanus, and to have promised him to 
desert the cause of Carthage. Nothing could so effec- 
tually cripple the Carthaginians as to deprive them of 
the alliance of the Numidians ; and, besides, Scipio had 
made up his mind to endeavour to strike the Punic city 
at her heart, and to free Italy from Hannibal's presence 
by recalling him to defend his native home, — and for this 
relations with the Numidians must pave the way. These 
people were it seems divided into two tribes, the Massi- 
lians to the eastward, of whom Massinissa's father was 
king, and a more powerful tribe to the west called the 
Massesylii (at least so the Romans construed the words), 
under a king, by name Syphax, who had already been in 
correspondence with Scipio's father, and was reported to 
be favourable to the Romans. Accordingly Scipio sent 
Laelius to Africa to confer with him, and when the am- 
bassador returned with tidings that Syphax would treat 
with no one but Scipio in person, he embarked at New 
Carthage in a quinquireme, and, with only one other ship 
in attendance, crossed over to Africa with a swift and 
favourable wind. Strange to say, he found, newly arrived, 



3 oo THE BOOK OF 

in the harbour, seven ships which had just come with 
Asdrubal Gisco for the purpose of securing Syphax to 
Carthage. It was a curious encounter : the two generals 
met in the presence of the prince, who feasted them at 
the same banquet, and listened to their conversation with 
admiration. Asdrubal was exceedingly struck with the 
courtesy, readiness, and wisdom of his rival, who, he said, 
seemed to him more dangerous in peace than in war, so 
that he had ceased to wonder how Spain had been won. 
Syphax likewise seemed much pleased with the Roman, 
and made him fair promises, so that he returned well 
satisfied with his mission. 

On his return he performed a vow he had made in 
honour of the souls of his father and uncle, by celebrating 
games at New Carthage. These in the Roman fashion 
consisted of fights of gladiators or trained swordsmen, 
sometimes slaves kept for the purpose, sometimes hired 
warriors; and on this occasion two Keltiberian princes 
fought together, with a chieftainship for their prize. These 
shows became a horrible abuse, but their worst form had 
not then begun 

But Scipio's work was not yet done. Syphax in his 
absence had been won over to Carthage by the promise 
of marrying Sophonisba, the beautiful daughter of As- 
drubal, and Scipio's journey had further slackened the 
allegiance of the fickle Spaniards. Two cities, named 
Illiturgi and Castulo, had maltreated the fugitives after 
the defeat of the two elder Scipiones, and these were to 
be besieged and punished. There was a terrible mas- 
sacre at the first, which was taken by assault, but Castulo 
surrendered and was pardoned. Immediately after Scipio 
returned to New Carthage, being apparently forced to rest 
by the approach of illness, while Marcius proceeded to 
besiege the town of Astapia, a fierce community whose 
natives had always been foes to the Romans. They were 



WORTHIES, 3 or 

resolved to accept no terms, but raised a pile in the middle 
of the city, placed their wives and children on it, put fifty 
men to watch, and then sallied out to die fighting to the 
last. Then the fifty set fire to the pile, killed the women 
and children, and falling on their own swords, threw them- 
selves into the flames. 

Meanwhile Scipio lay at New Carthage, fast becoming 
so desperately ill that the report went forth through Spain 
that he was dying, or dead. The effect on the whole 
country showed that he had unintentionally won partisans 
rather to himself than to Rome, for the Keltiberians, 
shamed perhaps by the fierce patriotism of Astapia, began 
to revolt, and even Indibilis and Mardonius, the brother 
chiefs, showed themselves unfaithful, and, what was far 
more serious, 8,000 Romans and Italians, who were in a 
camp on the banks of the river Sucro, or Xucar, rose in 
mutiny, insisting on receiving their pay and being sent 
home to Italy. They drove out their tribunes, and elected 
as their leaders two common soldiers, Italians, named 
Atrius and Albius, who arrayed themselves as consuls, 
and caused the lictors with their bundles of rods to go 
before them. They even proposed to go to Campania, 
seize a city there, and plunder the country round ; and 
Mago, in the Carthaginian garrison at Gades, or Cadiz, 
secretly sent them supplies, rejoicing in the embarrass- 
ment that thus should be caused to Rome. 

Such was the condition of affairs when Scipio was 
again able to attend to business. The first thing he did 
was to send seven officers to the mutineers to ask their 
grievances, promise them their pay, and invite them into 
New Carthage to receive it ; and at the same time prepa- 
rations were made for the immediate march of Silanus, 
with all the faithful troops, to chastise Indibilis; so that 
the proconsul would seem to be left at their mercy. The 
whole eight thousand marched in, and went to their 



302 THE BOOK OF 

quarters, the seven officers each inviting five of the ring- 
leaders to supper. They came unsuspiciously, and were 
quietly seized and imprisoned without being able to com- 
municate with their supporters. 

In the morning S nanus' troops were summoned to 
march, but they were in reality sent round to secure the 
gates of the city, while the malcontents were invited to 
meet the general in the market-place. Thither they all 
hurried, without their arms, and there they first missed 
their leaders in rebellion, while they beheld on the tri- 
bunal, or judgment-seat, in his official dress, the lictors 
with their rods and axes on each side of him, their pro- 
consul, pale, grave, sad, and terrible in the silence with 
which he looked down on them. 

There was an awful time of suspense until the crier 
proclaimed silence ; and then Scipio stood up and spoke 
to them on the baseness and folly, the shamefulness and 
ingratitude, of their behaviour, in thus turning against 
their country, simply because, as he said, "their general 
was sick, and could not give them their pay at the usual 
time !" They hung their heads, sensible that they had 
in their recklessness committed the fault most unpar- 
donable in the Roman mind. None of their noisy 
leaders were visible to encourage them ; but they heard 
the clash of arms, and saw every street full of their faithful 
comrades, whom they expected to slaughter them accord- 
ing to their legal deserts. " But," added Scipio, " the 
multitude who were led astray are freely pardoned. Jus- 
tice is satisfied by the punishment of the ringleaders, 
who have been tried by the council of war." 

This was in fact what he had been waiting for. A 
court of officers had been trying and sentencing the 
prisoners, and the crier proceeded to call over the names 
of the thirty-five. Each was led forth, already stripped to 
the waist, bound to the stake, beaten with rods by the 



WORTHIES, 303 

lictors, and then beheaded. Some were old soldiers of the 
elder Scipio, and the young general looked on with tears 
at their sufferings ; but on this severity depended the 
safety of the army: and as soon as the terrible scene was 
over the corpses were dragged away. Water and sand 
effaced the blood, and Scipio rose again and swore that 
he freely pardoned the rest. Then one by one each was 
called, renewed his oath to serve as a soldier, and re- 
ceived his full arrears of pay. Thus pardoned, the attach- 
ment of the troops to Scipio became stronger than ever; 
and it was needed, for Indibilis and Mardonius, with a 
huge multitude of Keltiberians, were plundering the Roman 
possessions north of the Ebro. Scipio felt this defection 
bitterly, and in his speech to his troops called the 
Spaniards nothing better than robbers and ingrates. 
The soldier fully shared his feeling, and in ten days he 
had brought them to the banks of the Ebro ; in four days 
more had gained a complete victory : 4,000 Spanish slain 
encumbered the ground, many more escaped, and the 
two chiefs came into the camp, and, throwing themselves 
on the ground before the general, implored his pardon, 
throwing all the blame on the report of his death, which 
had changed the minds of the people. 

Scipio, always merciful, but stern, answered, "You have 
deserved to die, but you owe your lives to Roman cle- 
mency. I shall not disarm you. That would look as if 
I feared you. If you rebel again, I shall not punish 
your faithless hostages, but yourselves. So consider 
whether you prefer our mercy in peace or our severity 
in war." 

Nor did he inflict any punishment on them, except the 
payment of a large sum of money from their silver mines, 
which no doubt was exceedingly needed, since Rome had 
too much on her hands to supply him with more than 
permission to use the stores of Spain to support the war. 



304 THE BOOK OF 

After this Scipio made an expedition to the immediate 
neighbourhood of Gades, for the purpose of holding a 
meeting with the Numidian prince, Massinissa, who had 
notified his great desire of seeing the renowned Roman, 
and who was at that last Punic stronghold with Mago. A 
plundering sally was so arranged that Massinissa might 
secretly fall in with the proconsul ; and the effect on him of 
Scipio's appearance and manner was more complete than 
it had been upon Syphax. The dark, high-spirited Moorish 
prince had been highly educated, and could better appre- 
ciate the nobleness, grace, and strength of the Roman ; 
he attached himself warmly to him on the spot, invited 
him to Africa, and promised him his assistance against 
Carthage. At present, however, he kept terms with his old 
allies, and returned to Gades, whence Hannibal soon after 
summoned his brother. Mago, anxious to collect trea- 
sure for the Italian war, plundered the temples, and used 
such extortion that he alienated the citizens, though they 
were mostly of Tyrian origin ; and as soon as he was 
gone they had surrendered to the Romans; so that Scipio 
had in five years absolutely driven the Carthaginians 
out of the peninsula, and well redeemed his promise 
to the Roman people. 

On his way back to Tarraco, after receiving the sub- 
mission of Gades, Scipio was met by two new proconsuls 
who had come out to relieve him, his five years of office 
being over. He therefore took leave of his Spanish 
army, and, with his brother Lucius and his friend Lselius, 
sailed for Italy. No sooner was he gone than there was 
another Keltiberian revolt, which was only put down by 
the death of the two fickle and untrustworthy chiefs. 

In the meantime Scipio with his ten ships arrived at 
Ostia, and thence proceeded to the gates of Rome, where, 
according to custom, he waited till he should receive 
from the Senate leave to enter. He could not have a 



WORTHIES. 305 

triumph, because he had never been a consul ; but the 
Senate came out to the temple of Bellona to meet him, and 
hear the number of victories, and sieges, and the tribes 
he had subdued, and how, having found four Carthagi- 
nian generals with their armies in Spain, he had not 
left one single soldier there on their side ; and he brought 
home a considerable amount of gold and silver, which, 
as he entered Rome, was carried before him to the 
treasury. 

It was the time of election for the consulate of 204, 
and though he was still two years under the legal age of 
thirty, the whole people unanimously elected him consul, 
together with Publius Licinius Crassus. This was in 
his eyes only a step to his great scheme of attacking 
the Carthaginians at home. There was Hannibal, driven 
up, indeed, into Bruttium, the extreme end of the pen- 
insula of Italy, and very ill supported from home, but 
still there, and waiting till the tide should turn in his 
favour at Carthage to burst forth with all the terrors of his 
wonderful genius. There was no way, as Scipio believed, 
to deliver the Italian soil from him but attacking his native 
country, and, standing forth in the Senate, the young 
consul eagerly explained his views, and demanded an 
army to take to Africa. So vehement was he, and, from 
long absence, so little aware of the temper of his hearers, 
that he declared that, if the Senate would not consent, 
he would appeal to the people, who would gladly accord 
their sanction. 

Nothing could be more offensive to the old fathers of 
the Senate than these words from a man who would not 
have been among them at all if he had not been sent to 
a province that nobody else would take, and there had 
five years of unchecked power, which they believed to 
have rendered him rash, headstrong, and conceited. 
Above all was shocked old Quintus Fabius. His grand- 
x 



3o6 THE BOOK OF 

father had won the surname of Maximus by harassing 
and wearing out Pyrrhus, and he himself had, by the same 
tactics carried on with more caution and weariness, pre- 
vented another Cannae, shut Hannibal up in Bruttium, and 
obtained for himself the additional surname of Cunctator 
or "the Hinderer." He was now the senior senator, or, as 
it was termed, Father of the Senate ; and he rose in great 
displeasure to put down the presumptuous young general, 
who, as he said, had not come to the years of his son, 
while he himself had been twice dictator and five times 
consul. He dilated on all the disasters that had ever 
happened from rashness, especially the loss of Regulus in 
Africa, and concluded, after praising his own prudence 
to a great extent, by saying, " My opinion, Conscript 
Fathers, is that Publius Cornelius was created consul, 
not for his own sake, but that of the Republic, and that 
our armies were raised for the defence of Rome and Italy, 
not that consuls, like kings, should out of pride carry 
them into whatever countries they list." 

Scipio kept his temper as Roman dignity required, and 
contented himself with arguing the point ; but he had set 
the Senate against him by talking of an appeal to the people, 
and instead of being answered, he was desired to state 
whether this was his intention. He said he should do 
what was for the welfare of the state, and would make no 
further answer ; but finding that the tribunes of the people 
would not support him, he promised to submit to the 
decision of the Senate. The other consul also held the 
office of Pontifex Maximus, or chief priest, and therefore 
could not serve out of Italy ; and thus the Fabian party 
could not prevent Scipio from being the commander in 
Sicily ; but though they gave him leave to cross to Africa 
if it were for the good of the state, they would not allow 
him to raise an army in Rome. 

Still he worked energetically, and his popularity with 



WORTHIES. 307 

the Italian soldiers was so great, that many, from all the 
Italian nations in alliance with Rome, volunteered to join 
him, and though the old Cunctator at Rome prevented 
any supplies from being granted to him, he obtained 
assistance from the cities in alliance, cut down timber 
from the mountain slopes of Sicily, and built thirty new 
galleys. Massinissa, too, came to visit him, and urged 
him to cross into Africa, assuring him of a welcome ; but 
on the other hand Syphax as strongly dissuaded him 
from coming. 

While thus engaged, he still had time to enjoy his 
residence at Syracuse, one of the most cultivated and 
learned of Grecian cities, and still redolent of the fame of 
Archimedes, the greatest of ancient mathematicians and 
engineers, who had been killed in the sack of the place 
by the Romans only seven years before. Scipio, who had 
only hitherto been able to glean fragments of the Greek 
harvest of wisdom, poetry, science, and art in the remote 
colonies of Gaul, threw himself into the study of all that 
Syracuse could offer of training, both for mind and body, 
in her books or her theatres — even in the midst of his 
ardent preparations for the voyage to Africa ; but his 
year of consulship sped quickly by, and his only deed 
of arms was the taking of the small city of the Locrians, 
on the opposite shore of Rhegium, from Hannibal's 
garrison, and putting in a legate called Ouintus Pleminius, 
who behaved with shameful ferocity to the unfortunate 
inhabitants. 

It was Scipio's hope that, though his year of consulship 
was over, he might be continued as proconsul in Sicily, 
and carry out his views ; but no sooner were the two new 
consuls established for the year 203 than ten deputies 
from Locri, in shabby garments, with olive branches in 
their hands, arrived at Rome, and came before the Senate 
with lamentable complaints of the barbarous usage they 
x 2 



3 o8 THE BOOK OF 

had received from Pleminius. Fabius asked whether they 
had appealed to the consul, whose officer he was. 

" Yes, indeed ; but he was too busy about his prepa- 
rations for war to hear them. Besides, he had already 
shown unjust favour to Pleminius." 

The deputies were heard and pitied, and then up stood 
Marcus Porcius Cato, a young man, but belonging to the 
elder party, who wanted to keep Rome the stern old plain 
city of peasant kings she had once been. Dentatus was 
his model. He spent his time in war, farming, and states- 
manship, lived in poverty, disapproved of all but the 
barest rudiments of learning, despised foreign customs, 
and dreaded any accession of territory, lest the old 
Roman manners should be spoilt by luxury. He had 
been sent as quaestor with Scipio into Sicily, and had 
there remonstrated against his expenditure, to which 
all the reply he obtained was, "It was of victories, 
not money, that an account should be rendered to the 
Republic." 

He now described what he deemed the great and 
useless expenses of Scipio, and his love of the Greek 
theatre and gymnastic sports : " Worthy of a boy whose 
business was to celebrate games instead of making war," 
said the rough Cato. 

Other senators added, that the proconsul had discarded 
the toga for the Greek mantle and sandals ; that he was 
always reading Greek, and amusing himself ; and that his 
army was as bad as himself, and more terrible to friends 
than to foes. 

" Born to ruin military discipline," declared old Fabius, 
" he lost as much by sedition as by war in Spain. One 
while he indulges his soldiers in licence, and another he 
tyrannizes over them like a king and stranger." 

Therefore Fabius proposed that Scipio should be re- 
called, and deposed from the proconsulate with ignominy, 



WORTHIES, 309 

that Pleminius should be brought in chains to Rome for 
punishment, and that ample amends should be made to 
the Locrians. 

However, the debate had lasted so long that the votes 
of the Senate had to be taken the next day ; and this gave 
time to Quintus Caecilius Metellus, who, perhaps, owed 
Scipio some gratitude for having saved him from aban- 
doning his country, to induce the Conscript Fathers to 
send commissioners to examine into Scipio's conduct, and 
only bring him back to Rome if they found him deserving 
of such disgrace. 

Accordingly the embassy proceeded to Locri, where 
the first aspect of Pleminius somewhat cooled their pity 
for his accusers, for it proved that they had taken the law 
into their own hands and had cut off his nose and ears. 
However, they sent him off to Rome, and went on to 
Sicily, where to their surprise they found a fine new fleet, 
a splendid army in perfect discipline, a contented pro- 
vince, and an alert, active proconsul, who, if he did speak 
and read Greek, showed no traces of any of that effeminacy 
of which Cato and Fabius accused him, far less of ferocity. 
They were quite satisfied. Pleminius had indeed been a 
bad man, but the cruelty exercised on himself had made 
it needful for Scipio to support him, as representing 
Rome, and the more respectable Locrians themselves 
quite exonerated the proconsul from anything but unwill- 
ingness to believe in the guilt of a fellow-soldier who had 
been savagely used. The commissioners, so far from 
sending Scipio home, gave him their full sanction for his 
expedition. " Go," they said, " and the gods give you 
that success which the Roman people promise themselves 
from your virtue and abilities." 

So, in the year 203, Scipio was at length able to sail for 
Africa, starting from Lilybaeum with the army he had 
been forming for nearly two years, many of them old 



3 io THE BOOK OF 

soldiers who had fled from Carina?, and burnt to retrieve 
their fame. The number of his army is uncertain. 

He embarked with solemn prayer, and landed near 
Utica, a city in a bay very near the great harbour of 
Carthage. Asdrubal Gisco, after having long played off 
the two young Moorish princes, Syphax and Massinissa, 
against one another, by alluring them with the charms of 
his daughter Sophonisba, had at last given her to Syphax, 
and had then attacked Massinissa with such effect as to 
drive him from his home, and force him to lurk about the 
country with a few followers, until on the news of Scipio's 
landing he joined the Romans, and 2,000 of his brave 
horsemen flocked together round him. 

Scipio's first endeavour was to besiege Utica, but he was 
forced to desist by the advance of Asdrubal and Syphax 
with an immense army. Both parties encamped for the 
winter; the Carthaginians in huts of wood, the Numidians 
of reeds. On these Scipio made a sudden descent, set 
the camp on fire, and in the confusion killed 40,000 
enemies and dispersed the rest. They united once more, 
and were again defeated and scattered ; and then, while 
Scipio remained to besiege the cities on the coast, he sent 
his friend Lselius with Massinissa to pursue Syphax into 
his own country. 

They met him in battle, defeated him, and made him 
prisoner ; and then Massinissa, hurrying on to Cyrtha in 
advance of the Romans, there found the beautiful Sopho- 
nisba, the bride he had been defrauded of, a high-spirited 
woman of the proud determined Phoenician stamp, who 
hated the Romans with the direful hate of Hannibal, and 
whose first entreaty was that her captor would save her 
from falling alive into Roman hands. 

Massinissa, who had long loved her, instantly decided 
that to marry her himself was the only mode of protecting 
her, and the Carthaginian rite had just been performed 



WORTHIES, 311 

when Lselius arrived, and was much displeased, since the 
lady was Scipio's captive, and in Roman eyes was the 
destined ornament of his triumph. The real danger was 
the influence her beauty and resolution were sure to give, 
for when Syphax arrived at Scipio's camp in chains, he 
told the general, with some bitterness, that it was she who 
had driven him into opposition to the Romans, and fore- 
told that she would act in the same way by Massinissa. 

Thus when that prince arrived, after having completed 
the subjugation of the Massilians, Scipio received him 
with grave displeasure, reminding him how careful he 
had himself been in Spain to protect the wives and 
families of his prisoners as sacred possessions, and 
showing him that he had neither been a generous 
enemy to Syphax nor a true ally to the Roman people, 
since to them alone belonged the right of disposing of a 
royal captive. 

Massinissa was confounded. All he did was to murmur 
something about his promise to Sophonisba that she 
should not be delivered alive to the Romans. Then 
retiring, he shut himself up in his tent, whence his sobs 
and groans were heard ; and finally he sent a trusty slave 
to Sophonisba, with a dose of poison, telling her it was 
the only way left him of redeeming his promise. She 
said, " I accept this marriage-gift ; he could do nothing 
kinder ; " drank it, and died. 

It was no doubt what Scipio intended. Of gentler 
mould than most of his nation, he did not delight in 
the cruel insults of dragging princes and princesses along 
at the wheels of his car to be murdered at the close of 
the procession. Even Syphax was spared this humiliation, 
and kindly treated, though kept a prisoner. And when 
self-destruction was deemed no crime, he no doubt thought 
it real generosity to leave Sophonisba to die voluntarily, 
rather than be rent from her husband and cast into the 



3 i2 THE BOOK OF 

imprisonment she hated. Syphaxwas sent to Italy under 
the charge of Laslius. 

These losses so alarmed the judges and elders of Car- 
thage, that they resolved to negotiate with their enemies, 
and gain time for the recall of Hannibal and Mago from 
Italy. They sent ambassadors, who threw themselves at 
Scipio's feet, and besought him to grant them terms of 
peace. He answered at first that he was not come to 
treat with Carthage, but to conquer it, and he proposed 
terms that he thought impossible for them to accept ; but 
as they only wanted to gain time, they pretended to take 
them into consideration, and thus obtained a truce, during 
which they sent orders to Hannibal to return to their 
defence, B.C. 202. 

It was sixteen years since Hannibal had forced his way 
over the Alps, and, by unexampled skill, defeated the 
Romans on their own ground again and again, and 
threatened their proud city with imminent ruin. Ever 
since, with patience and constancy almost unrivalled, he 
had kept his army together, obtained support, and bided 
his time for a decisive attack ; — but that time had never 
come. Jealousy of his family had prevented his country- 
men from supporting him, for though they had a bitter 
malevolence against Rome, it was not active enough to 
lead them to make any great exertion against her, and 
they had none of the love of martial glory which would 
have fired them with zeal to push on the conquest. They 
merely let him stay in Italy and maintain himself as best 
he might, until they needed his services, and then they 
ordered him home, with no feeling save that he was likely 
to be their best defender. " The Romans," he said, almost 
with tears, "have not vanquished Hannibal. It is the 
Carthaginians ! " And he prepared to quit the soil of 
Italy with as much grief and reluctance as an exile going 
into banishment — sorrow not a little increased by the loss 



WORTHIES. 313 

of his brave brother Mago, who was mortally wounded in a 
sea fight on his homeward voyage, and died in the island 
of Sardinia. Hannibal thus re-entered Carthage almost 
as a stranger, for he had never set foot there since he 
had left it with his father at nine years old, and now re- 
turned at forty-five, with manners, tastes, and sentiments 
far more Greek than Phoenician, but with the implacable 
hatred to Rome that he had sworn before Baal's altar 
only increased by the death of his two brothers. 

Rome was in an ecstasy of joy, although old Fabius 
Cunctator was certain that the fate of Regulus awaited 
Publius Cornelius as soon as Hannibal should once 
come within reach of him, and further declared that 
"the Republic had never been in a more deplorable 
state." But it was his last croak ; he died in the course 
of the same year; and the greater part of the Senate, 
who had been won over to the side of the brave pro- 
consul by the failure of Cato's accusations, appointed 
Laelius his quaestor, and finding that one of the consuls, 
Servilius Caepio, was intending to go to Africa to obtain 
the final honour of the victory, they appointed a dicta- 
tor on purpose to prevent him from interfering with 
Scipio. 

As to the victory, it was indeed no certain matter, for 
successful as Scipio had been, it had been only against 
inferior generals, and Hannibal was the victor in every 
one of the eight battles in which he had been engaged ; 
he had defeated nine consuls, singly or in pairs, the 
choicest soldiers of Rome, of whom no less than four had 
been slain ; and the only previous Roman expedition into 
Africa had been lamentably unsuccessful. Yet when an em- 
bassy came from Carthage to propose the terms of peace 
that had been laid before Scipio, the Senate rejected them, 
and granted reinforcements to be sent out by Laelius. 

The truce was broken by the Carthaginians as soon as 



3 i4 THE BOOK OF 

Hannibal had landed at Leptis, contrary, it would seem, 
to his opinion, for he saw that the loss of a battle in the 
present state of things would be utter ruin, and, con- 
summate general as he was, he had only the few old 
soldiers he had brought from Italy to whom he could 
entirely trust, and those magnificent horsemen who had 
done him such signal service. Spanish and Numidian 
were now all on the other side. But as Scipio was ravag- 
ing the highly-cultivated fields and gardens of the Car- 
thaginians, multitudes flocked to oppose him, and the 
number of Hannibal's army soon far exceeded that of 
the Roman. 

A Carthaginian spy was taken prisoner, when, instead 
of hanging him, Scipio caused him to be led round the 
beautifully-ordered camp, and sent him back to report 
what he had seen. This gave Hannibal an opportunity 
of begging for a personal interview, and the two generals 
marched their armies to the neighbourhood of the city of 
Zama, where there was an open plain between the camps. 
Into the centre of this the two rode, each accompanied 
by an equal number of guards, and, after respectful salu- 
tations, remained for a while contemplating each other 
in silence. There is no description of Hannibal's appear- 
ance, but he may be thought of as a man of middle age, 
rugged, worn, and weatherbeaten, with keen Eastern 
features, and the loss of an eye ; while Scipio was in the 
prime of manhood, and full of agile grace and courtesy, 
his long hair flowing beneath his helmet. Hannibal had 
always striven to show that his hate of Rome was not 
hate of individual Romans, and he spoke to Scipio with 
great respect, offering honourable terms of peace ; but 
none of these would Scipio accept, alleging that the 
Carthaginians having broken the truce, could not expect 
to escape without a penalty, and therefore that he could 
only impose terms far severer than those that had been 



WORTHIES. 315 

before presented. Thus the two great captains parted to 
prepare for one of the most notable battles in the world, 
not only because of the great interests there at stake, 
but because it was the collision of two of the most 
skilful generals of the whole of time. 

It was the 19th of October, 202, that they were thus to 
measure their strength. The number of men on either 
side is not known, but Hannibal certainly had the 
greater force, although Scipio, in addition to his own 
troops, was supported by Massinissa with the Numidian 
cavalry. 

Hannibal had eighty elephants, which he ranged in 
front ; behind them he placed his hired troops, the Gauls, 
Moors, and Baleares ; in the next line the Carthaginians, 
and a body of mercenary Greeks; and in reserve his 
tried veterans from Italy, placing the Carthaginian horse 
on one wing and the few Numidians remaining to him 
on the other. 

Scipio drew up his legions after the usual fashion, 
except that he kept a sort of lane between their compact 
masses, as a place of retreat for the light troops in case 
of their being discomfited by the elephants, instead of 
being obliged to run back on the spears of their comrades. 
He placed the Italian horse under Laelius to the left, the 
Numidians with Massinissa on the right. 

Skirmishes began between the Numidians on each side ; 
then Hannibal ordered his elephants to advance; but the 
Roman shouts and trumpets rendered some of them 
restive, and, turning back on the Numidians, they broke 
their line, and Massinissa thus had an easy success. 
Others did the same work for Laelius, but the centre 
ones would have much damaged the light spears but 
for the lanes, down which these retreated behind the 
heavy infantry, and the beasts, following them, were 
captured. Then came the great fight between the legion- 



316 THE BOOK OF 

aries and the foot soldiers on the other side. The first 
line of these was the hired soldiers, and as soon as 
they began to give way, they fancied it was for want 
of support from those behind, and fell upon them in 
a rage, so that, after fighting bravely, they fled. They 
would have fallen back upon Hannibal's reserve, but 
these held out their bristling spears, and drove them off 
in other directions. Then came the real brunt of the 
battle, between the veteran remnant of the conquerors 
of eight Roman armies and the legionaries of Scipio. 
It was well and steadily fought, and was decided at last 
by the arrival of Laelius and Massinissa, who galloped up 
from the pursuit while victory was still doubtful, and so 
entirely turned the scale, that Hannibal was forced to 
ride at full speed to Adrumentum, closely followed by 
Massinissa, and Scipio stood on the field, victor, in the 
greatest battle that Rome had yet fought. Twenty 
thousand enemies were slain, and the might of Carthage 
was crippled for ever. 

After the obsequies of the 2,000 Roman slain, Scipio 
went on board ship, and sailed towards the harbour ot 
Carthage, leaving his army to march thither by land. 
Soon a galley decked with olive branches came out to 
meet him, containing deputies who sued for peace. He 
replied by laying on them conditions far harder. No 
possessions beyond the African coast should be allowed 
them ; the kingdom of Massinissa should be made inde- 
pendent ; no war should be entered into without Rome's 
permission ; no elephants might be trained for war : and 
10,000 talents of gold were to be paid by instalments to 
Rome within fifty years. 

Terribly hard terms were these, but Hannibal himself 
saw the hopelessness of the situation, and advised his 
countrymen to submit. Indeed, he gave such offence by 
his promptness of speech, that he was obliged to apologise 



WORTHIES, 317 

for having no acquaintance with the forms of public 
speaking current in the city. Nay, grievous as were the 
conditions, the consul Publius Cornelius Lentulus, a rela- 
tion of Scipio's, thought them too mild, and wanted 
to come out to Africa, to supersede the proconsul, and 
utterly destroy the city; but this the Senate prevented, 
and, though they could not keep him from going to Africa, 
decreed that the management of the treaty and the 
bringing home of the army were the right of Scipio. 
Accordingly the peace was concluded, the ships, elephants, 
and prisoners made over to the Romans, and the first 
instalment of the tribute paid. When the amount which 
each Carthaginian was to contribute was read in the public 
assembly, the whole of those present burst into tears, 
except Hannibal, and he fell into a fit of laughter. They 
turned on him in anger. " My laughter," he said, " is as 
far from mirth as your tears. You wept not for the loss 
of our arms and our ships ; but for a little money you weep 
as though our city were going to her burial." 

Meantime Scipio placed Massinissa on the throne of 
all Numidia, and then set out for Rome, where he was 
received with rapture. All his enemies were for the time 
silenced by gratitude to one who had been the deliverer of 
his country. The triumph that ended the second Punic 
war, B.C. 200, was the most magnificent hitherto seen, 
enriched as it was with the splendours of the Cartha- 
ginians, with a huge amount of treasure, and with the 
unwieldy march of the trained elephants. The people 
were so enthusiastic in their exultation, that they proposed 
to nominate Scipio consul and dictator for life, and to set 
up his statue in all the public places ; but he was too wise 
to seek honours that would have been inconsistent with 
the constitution of the state, and the only reward which 
he accepted for his services was the surname of Africanus, 
or the African, to be hereditary in his family. 



3 i8 THE BOOK OF 

However, in 198, he was made Prince of the Senate, and 
likewise elected censor, and four years later was a second 
time consul. During this time Marcus Porcius Cato was 
proconsul in Spain, where there had been another revolt, 
and though he had proved himself a good general, and 
thoroughly disinterested, had been so ferocious and cruel 
that he had become the misery and terror of the Kelti- 
berians ; for, indeed, it was his boast that he had 
destroyed more cities than he had spent days in that 
unhappy country. Scipio, who could not but have a 
great regard for the country where his first successes had 
been won, and a people whose hearts he had held in his 
hand, accused Cato before the Senate, and procured his 
recall, and his own nomination to the province for his 
proconsulate. 

But when Cato returned, it was with a long list of con- 
quered tribes and besieged towns, and with a huge amount 
of brass, iron, gold, and silver. Men's minds turned in his 
favour : the indignation of Scipio passed for personal spite ; 
the common sort of Romans had no feelings for the suf- 
ferings of subject or rebel tribes, and Cato and his officers 
had plenty to say of the desperate perfidy, violence, and 
savagery of the tribes they had hunted down. Instead of 
censuring or reversing his acts, the Senate decreed a 
thanksgiving of three days, and Scipio, finding that if he 
went to Spain he should have no power to do anything 
but tread down the remnant of his old friends in con- 
tinuation of Cato's barbarous policy, chose to remain at 
home ; and thus Rome lost one opportunity of being taught 
to be less merciless. However, his cousin and friend, the 
son of his bald-headed uncle Lucius, Publius Cornelius 
Scipio Nasica, or " the Long-nosed," a young man of great 
promise, was well maintaining the fame and the love of 
the name of Scipio in the further province, which was 
always governed by an ex-praetor. 



WORTHIES. 319 

There was evidently a jealousy of the united strength of 
the great Cornelian Gens, for all the interest of Africanus 
could not secure Nasica from being defeated when he 
stood for the consulate on his return to Rome in 193. 
However, on a quarrel between Massinissa and Carthage, 
Scipio was sent to mediate, and two years later on 
another embassy. 

Whatever Cato and the plain old Romans might wish, 
the city had not found it possible to stand still and cease 
from aggressive wars. Every fresh conquest led to fresh 
relations, and even before the second Punic war was over 
there were complications with the Greek powers that led 
to alliances with some and contests with others. Already 
in the efforts made by Philopcemen of Megalopolis to 
undo the mischief that he had joined Aratus in doing, 
and to free. Greece from Macedon, Rome had been called 
in, and in alliance with the Greeks had tamed the pride 
of Macedon, and taken the whole country under a sort 
of protection that was not far from subjugation. This 
brought them into collision with Antiochus the Great, the 
sixth of the Macedonian dynasty who ruled in Syria, and 
held great part of Asia Minor, as well as many of the 
islands of the ^Egean and the Thracian Chersonese. His 
dominions, including Assyria and all the boundless re- 
sources of the wide East, made him deem himself able to 
cope with Rome, whilst Hannibal, whose life had become 
unbearable among the sordid cabals of Carthage, had 
fled to his court, and, thinking him the most promising 
enemy of Rome, stirred him up to enterprise. 

The Chersonese was the subject of dispute, and a 
Roman embassy was despatched to debate the point and 
make terms, or else declare war. Scipio Africanus thus 
had the opportunity of passing through Greece, and 
beholding the exquisite buildings and works of art, and 
the historical scenes that he had always loved to dwell 



3 20 THE BOOK OF 

on ; and on arriving at Ephesus, with all her glories of 
temple, theatre, harbour, and palace, he there found what 
interested him far more than Eastern splendour, his own 
great rival, Hannibal. 

Again the two national foes met as personal friends, 
and much did they walk and talk together in the porticoes 
and gardens of Ephesus. Only one of their conversations 
has, however, been recorded. In it Scipio is said to have 
asked whom his companion regarded as the greatest of 
generals. 

" Alexander, for he did the mightiest of deeds with a 
handful of men," said Hannibal, looking on the very scene 
of some. 

" Who the next greatest ? " asked Scipio. 

" Pyrrhus, for he conciliated and kept together the 
Italian allies," answered Hannibal, who was a good judge 
what a task this was. 

"And the third?" 

" Myself." 

" Then where would you rank yourself if you had con- 
quered me?" 

"Above Alexander," returned Hannibal, perhaps in 
irony. 

The two were hoping soon to be again measuring 
their skill one against the other, but the base fancies of 
the Syrian Greeks led them to think the intimacy between 
the two generous rivals was a sign of treachery on Han- 
nibal's part. The news of the death of Antiochus' son 
gave him a pretext for breaking up the conference ; he 
dismissed the Romans without an answer, and though he 
commenced hostilities soon after, he only gave Hannibal 
the command of some ships, in which he was inex- 
perienced, so that he was beaten by the Rhodians. 

Meantime Scipio Nasica had obtained his. election, 
and the next year Lucius Scipio with Caius Laelius sat 



WORTHIES. 321 

together. On the expiration of their year, the proconsulate 
of Greece and Asia and the conduct of the war with 
Antiochus was naturally the portion of Lucius ; but some 
hesitation was shown as to whether he was capable of 
such a charge ; whereupon his brother Africanus offered 
to go with him as legate, which proposal was most 
thankfully acceded to. The two brothers embarked at 
Brundusium, and Scipio took with him certainly his 
youngest son, Cnaeus, and probably his eldest, Publius, 
to whom he was giving an exceedingly learned education 
in all Greek literature, the only line of distinction open to 
the lad, who, though his father's equal in abilities, had 
health too delicate for a soldier's or statesman's life. 
They were probably left at Athens, which in her decay 
was becoming a kind of university for the youths of 
Greece and Asia ; their father and uncle proceeding to 
Philippi, the court of the young king Philip of Macedon, 
whose battles the Romans professed to be fighting. 

Philip entertained his allies most courteously, and, as 
usual, the charm of Africanus' manners was felt, so that 
the king willingly accompanied the army to the shore of 
the Hellespont, whence they were to carry the war into 
Asia Minor. 

Here there was a short delay, because it was the feast 
of the Ancilia, or Golden Shields. The first of these 
shields had been found in the palace of Numa, who was 
reckoned as the second king of Rome, and eleven more 
had been made by a wonderful smith, such as is to be 
found in all mythologies, named Mamurius Veturius ; 
and twelve priests of Mars were appointed, who bore 
them through Rome on the calends of the month of Mars, 
clad in a mystic dress, singing hymns in honour of the 
smith, and keeping time by beating the shields with rods 
as they danced along in solemn procession, and were 
therefore called Salii, or the dancers. Such an office 

Y 



322 THE BOOK OF 

seems to us curious for the greatest generals of a state ; 
but Africanus was one of these dancing Salii, and though 
he could not perform in the streets, and was absent from 
his shield, it would have been sacrilege for him to march 
while the festival lasted, and he was one of the most 
pious of men. 

He joined the army again by the time they had reached 
the plain of Troy, which they loved and rejoiced to see ; 
but not, as Alexander had done, for the sake of Achilles. 
They deemed themselves the sons of the fugitive Trojans ; 
looked at Mount Ida as the cradle of their race ; loved 
the memory of Hector ; and offered a sacrifice to Pallas 
Athene, whose image, the palladium, had been stolen from 
the citadel, and safety with it, by Ulysses and Diomed. 

Soon after an embassy met them, proposing conditions 
of peace from Antiochus, and with a secret message to 
Africanus that his youngest son, Cnseus, had been cap- 
tured, probably by pirates, when boating from one part of 
the island of Eubcea to another, and was now in the 
hands of Antiochus, who offered to restore him, provided 
the influence of the legate were used for a favourable 
peace. To this Scipio could only return the answer that 
any honourable man must make, that no private concerns 
could make any difference to his actions in his country's 
service ; but either anxiety or the feverish atmosphere of 
the Levant affected his health, and at Elea he fell 
seriously ill, and had to be left behind, while both sides 
were in the midst of preparations for a battle. 

Antiochus had some generosity about him, and in a 
few days the boy appeared at his fathers bedside, released 
without any conditions. Scipio held him for a long time 
in his arms, and then looking up to the persons who had 
brought him, said smiling, " Thank the king from me, 
and tell him, the only token of gratitude I can send him 
is to desire him not to fight till I am in the camp." 



WORTHIES. 323 

Antiochus seems to have intended to act on this mes- 
sage, whatever it meant, and retreated upon Mount 
Sipylus, where he fortified his camp ; but Lucius Scipio 
followed hard after him, as if resolved to force on the 
combat and have the glory without his brother. He had 
sixteen of the Carthaginian elephants, but these were 
inferior, both in size and intelligence, to the thirty-four 
from India that Antiochus had, which carried towers on 
their backs, each holding four men, and had plumes of 
feathers on their heads, with purple and gold trappings. 
The Syrian army had, indeed, much of the old Persian 
splendour, but likewise of the Persian cumbrousness, and 
though there were Greeks enough to make a brave resist- 
ance, the defeat was entire. Antiochus fled to Antioch, 
and thence humbly entreated for peace. 

Scipio Africanus never showed any jealousy of his 
brothers success, and assisted him in receiving the em- 
bassy. Antiochus was to give up Asia as far as Mount 
Taurus ; to send his second surviving son as a hostage to 
Rome ; and to cease to harbour Hannibal, who there- 
upon fled to Crete, and afterwards went to the court of 
Prusias, king of Bithynia. 

The brothers returned home, and Lucius entered Rome 
in triumph, and received the surname of Asiagenes, or 
Asiaticus. But the hostility of the opposite faction could 
not long be silent. In 187 two tribunes of the people, 
instigated by Cato, demanded that Lucius should be 
called to account by the Senate for the sums of money 
received from Antiochus, and the spoil, which they 
alleged he had not paid faithfully over to the public 
treasury. 

The Senate met, and Lucius, standing before them, took 
a roll from his bosom. " Here," he said, " is the account 
of all the moneys I have received and paid." 

" Read it,'"' said the senators. 

Y 2 



324 



THE BOOK OF 



" He shall not put such an affront on himself," said 
Africanus, and snatching the roll from his hand he tore it 
in pieces. 

It was a foolish act of passion, and only excited more 
suspicion. Another tribune, named Marcus Nsevius, 
indicted Africanus himself, but merely accused him of 
overweening presumption unfit for a citizen; of having 
acted towards his brother more like a dictator than a 
legate ; and of having received his son from Antiochus ; 
besides the old stories about Syracuse and Locri. 

" Romans," said Scipio, " this is the anniversary of the 
battle of Zama ; it ill becomes us to spend it in wrangling. 
Come to the temple and return thanks." 

Every creature followed him except the tribune and the 
crier, and no one ventured to accuse him again. But the 
investigation of Lucius' accounts was insisted on ; he 
was found guilty, and was about to be thrown into prison 
till he should pay an enormous fine. Scipio, with his 
usual vehemence, rescued him from the officers of the 
law, and went off to his own estate at Liternum, not far 
from Naples. The hostile party now insisted that a day 
should be fixed for the trial of this presumptuous offender ; 
but one of the tribunes, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, 
who had hitherto been an enemy to the brothers, came 
forward and said, that to treat Publius Scipio as an enemy 
was a dishonour to the Roman people. Was no merit to 
become a sanctuary to great men? If Publius Scipio 
were brought to Rome, he should, as tribune, stop the 
trial ; and as to Lucius, he would never see a Roman 
general imprisoned in the very dungeon whither he had 
himself brought the enemies of Rome. 

This speech brought the people of Rome back to their 
senses. Moreover, in exculpation of Lucius, it was found 
that his whole property was far less than the fine imposed 
on him, and such a subscription was raised, that his for- 



WORTHIES. 325 

tune would have been made had he not chosen to accept 
no more than enough for his maintenance. However 
Cato, as censor, at the next review deprived him of the 
horse with which he appeared as a patrician and a 
senator, because of the story of the bribes of Antiochus ; 
at the same time taking away other horses, because their 
masters were too fat to serve in battle. 

Scipio showed his gratitude to Gracchus by giving him, 
plebeian as he was, his beautiful, learned, and excellent 
daughter Cornelia as a wife ; but the Roman ingratitude 
he could not forget, and he never returned to the city, 
but spent his latter days on his estate at Liternum, and 
there died in 183, when only forty-eight years old, desiring 
to be buried there instead of in the grand sepulchre of his 
family. His statue, however, adorned it, together with 
that of his brother Lucius. 

His younger son grew up unworthy ; the elder was very 
much respected, but was too sickly for public life, and 
having no children, adopted the son of one of his sisters, 
who had married an ^milius. This son, known as 
Publius Cornelius Scipio ^Emilianus, completed the con- 
quest of Carthage, and won for himself a second time the 
title of Africanus. But it was Cornelia, the mother of the 
Gracchi, as she loved to be called, who was the brightest 
glory of the great Scipio family, the representatives of 
Roman manners, just at the turning-point between rude- 
ness and luxury, and of Roman valour, before bravery 
in self-defence had entirely degenerated into lust of 
conquest. 



326 THE BOOK OF 



JUDAS MACCABEUS. 

B.C. 190 — 180. 

THE roll of Worthies would be so utterly incomplete 
without the mention of the noble Jew whom our ancestors 
seem to have respected and admired most of all, that we 
must not omit his biography, although most of it has been 
anticipated in the Golden Deeds ; and after having seen 
the vain endeavours of such men as Agis, Cleomenes, and 
Hannibal to raise up a falling state, to awaken dormant 
patriotism, and infuse new life into decaying limbs, it may 
be well to contemplate another patriot, who perished, 
indeed, but who did not fail, and who awakened new life 
as they could not do, for the very reason that he had to 
do with a living body, they with a dead one. 

The victory of Scipio Asiaticus at Mount Sipylus had 
resulted in Antiochus of Syria being obliged to send his 
son, of the same name as himself, to be educated at 
Rome. There Antiochus Epiphanes, or " the Illustrious," 
as he surnamed himself, remained for thirteen years, and 
became imbued with admiration for the grand and stately 
simplicity of the citizens. There was a reaction in his 
mind from the Eastern pomp that the Syro-Greeks 
affected, and he became thoroughly Latinized, lived on 
free terms with the Romans of his own age, wore the 
same dress, esteemed those homely practical offices by 
which they rose to the highest dignities as far superior to 



WORTHIES. 327 

his family's royalty, and even became enthusiastic for the 
Roman gods, infinitely preferring the Jupiter of the Capitol 
to the Grecian Zeus with whom he was identified. 

From his residence at Rome he was recalled, B.C. 175, 
by his brother Seleucus, the reigning monarch, who 
wanting to employ him, sent his own son, a mere boy, to 
serve as a hostage in his stead ; but on his journey home- 
ward, at Athens, he was met by the tidings that Seleucus 
had been poisoned by a favourite named Heliodorus, in 
the hope of obtaining the throne while both the heirs 
were out of the way. 

Upon this Antiochus turned aside to the King of Per- 
gamus in Asia Minor, whom he induced to assist him 
with his forces ; and, entering Syria, he met with no oppo- 
sition, but peaceably obtained possession of that most 
beautiful and luxurious of the Greek cities planted in the 
East — Antioch. 

There his Roman customs soon brought him into con- 
tempt among the minds so long accustomed to connect 
power with pomp. Had he been a great man, really able 
to appreciate and transplant the grandeur of simplicity, it 
would have been a critical experiment ; but he was a mere 
hot-headed dissolute youth, and it was the freedom, not 
the severity, of Roman manners that he imitated, and 
without any discretion. With almost despotic power 
in his hands, he would go from street to street in the 
white toga of a candidate for office, soliciting votes ; and 
having got himself elected as aedile or tribune, would 
cause such matters as would have come before those 
magistrates at Rome to be brought before him, by which 
proceeding he made himself simply ridiculous in the eyes 
of the satirical Greeks of Antioch. They resented, too, 
his custom of mingling freely with all companies, and his 
delight in conversing with craftsmen in gold and gems. 
Moreover, he was a drunkard, and would be seen in the 



328 THE BOOK OF 

wreath of roses, which the Romans wore at banquets to 
keep the brain cool, hurrying about the streets, flinging 
money to the populace, and crying " Catch who catch can !" 
At other times, when his mind was full of the Roman 
custom of going out alone, and without state, he would 
carry stones in his toga, and pelt every one who attempted 
to follow him ; and by such proceedings he soon brought 
the men of Antioch, who were famous for their love of 
nicknames, to call him, not Epiphanes,or " the Illustrious," 
but Epimanes, or " the Madman." 

Just at this time there arrived a traveller from Jeru- 
salem, which after having belonged to the Ptolemies of 
Egypt in the first partition of Alexander's empire, had, 
partly by conquest, partly by treachery, been transferred 
to the Syrians in the time of Antiochus the Great. The 
new-comer had but little of the Jew about him ; he wore 
the Greek tunic, and called himself Jason — a Greek name, 
in which none would have detected the old glorious 
Joshua which had been bestowed upon him at his cir- 
cumcision. For he was one of those Jews who had begun 
to imagine that adherence to the law of Moses made 
them behindhand with the world ; and he further wanted 
to propitiate the King of Syria by flattering his tastes. 
He was the second son of the late high priest, Simon, the 
brother of the present, Onias, and he coveted the office, 
not for its sanctity, but because it brought in much wealth 
and conferred a good deal of political power. 

So, through the medium of the courtiers, he offered 
Antiochus a bribe of 440 silver talents, provided he should 
be placed in his brother's office ; and, with still more 
shameful ingenuity, begged to pay 150 more talents for 
permission to set up a gymnasium, or place of public 
athletic shows, at Jerusalem, and for permission to call the 
inhabitants of Jerusalem Antiochians, thus charming the 
pride of the Syrian prince. 



WORTHIES. 329 

Such a petitioner was sure to be heard ; and the faithful 
Jews had the grief of seeing their good high priest 
deposed in favour of this disgrace to the sons of Aaron, 
who, bent on taking rank with Greek statesmen and gen- 
tlemen, looked on his holy office as only the remnant of 
an obsolete superstition, involving a few ceremonies that 
he must perform to content the people till he could wean 
them to higher philosophy. In the valley, at the foot of 
the tall fortress on Mount Sion beside the temple, was built 
one of those gymnasia, where the Greeks were wont to con- 
tend naked in the race, the wrestling match, or throwing 
the disc, and always in honour of their deities — things that 
were a shame and a horror to the imagination of a devout 
and modest Israelite. The chief young men, led away 
by the comparison of what was called their own narrow- 
minded barbarism with Greek learning, splendour, and 
beauty, followed Jason, adopted Greek fashions, and wore 
the broad hat, the mark of the Grecian soldier. The priests 
themselves grew afraid or ashamed to keep up their con- 
stant chant of psalms ; they neglected the sacrifices, 
despised the altars, and hurried to seek distinction by 
displaying themselves in the arena like the heathen, " not 
setting by the honours of their fathers, but liking the 
glory of the Grecians best of all." 

Since Alexander's adoption of the Tyrian Moloch into 
his own ancestor Hercules, the festival of that abhorrent 
deity (probably without the immolation of the children) 
had been very popular throughout the Grsecized East, and 
games were held in his honour every five years. By way 
of preserving his favour, Jason sent 300 drachmas of 
silver as an offering to this festival, though they were 
spent not on the sacrifices, but on the fleet ; and when 
King Antiochus himself visited Palestine, Jason received 
him at Jerusalem with a torchlight procession, loaded 
him with gifts, and accompanied him to Phoenicia. 



330 THE BOOK OF 

Again, three years after, he sent fresh presents to Anti- 
ochus by Menelaus, who is said by some writers to have 
been his nephew, by others a Benjamite, but who by 
his flatteries, and promises of a yet larger tribute than 
Jason's, gained the ear of Antiochus, and was assured of 
the priesthood. Jason fled to the Ammonites, and this 
still more wicked wretch came in, and committed many 
murders in the hope of securing himself in his post, and 
robbed the temple of some of the golden vessels. He 
even obtained the person of the good Onias by treachery, 
and murdered him ; and so gained over the courtiers ot 
Epiphanes, that when three of the Sanhedrim went to 
meet the king at Tyre to complain, they were absolutely 
put to death for venturing to murmur — a cruelty the 
Tyrians. so resented as to bury them with all honours. 

However, Antiochus shortly after went to Egypt, and, on 
a false report of his death, Jason returned, and by the 
assistance of his partizans obtained possession of part of 
the city ; but Menelaus kept the fortress on Mount Sion, 
and there was an incessant warfare in the streets, with 
much bloodshed, until, on the tidings that Antiochus was 
returning, Jason fled and took refuge in Sparta, where he 
died miserably. 

The tidings of the revolt, however, greatly enraged An- 
tiochus, or he may have only made it a pretext for making 
a violent attack upon Jerusalem, which he entered as a 
place taken by assault, giving licence to his troops to 
plunder and massacre, so that in three days 80,000 were 
slain, and many more taken to be sold as slaves. The 
king himself entered the holy place in the temple, with 
Menelaus the apostate as his guide, plundered it of a 
great treasure in gold and silver, and carried off the shew- 
bread table, the golden altar of incense, and the seven- 
branched candlestick, with many others of the sacred 
vessels, and the veil of the sanctuary. 



WORTHIES. 331 

He seems to have deemed this a fit moment for 
destroying the individuality and nationality of the Jews, 
and all the purity of faith and morality that seemed an 
insult to men stained with every sort of sensuality, but 
expecting divine honours from their subjects. He treated 
the Samaritans at Gerizim in the same manner, and in 
each place put a Syrian governor, who cruelly oppressed 
the people. 

In 168, two years later, he proceeded to more stringent 
measures, sending his collector of tributes, Apollonius, 
with orders to destroy the city itself. The wretch waited 
until the Sabbath to put his commands into execution, 
and then, when the whole population was assembled in 
the courts of the temple, he surrounded them with his 
troops, butchered all the men, and secured the women and 
children to be sold as slaves ; then rifled the houses, and 
set fire to many parts of the city. Only the walls of the 
temple and the fortress on Mount Sion were spared ; and 
this last was greatly strengthened, and garrisoned by a 
savage band of soldiers. No sacrifice was permitted to 
take place within the temple, and if a Jew were seen 
stealing thither to worship in those desolated courts, he 
was instantly pursued and slain. 

Shortly after an edict was published at Antioch, com- 
manding all nations in the dominions of Antiochus 
Epiphanes to cease from their own private laws and reli- 
gion, and to adore the same gods after the same manner 
as their illustrious master. In pursuance of this com- 
mand, an altar to Jupiter, as defender of strangers, was 
set up in the schismatical temple at Gerizim, and another 
to Jupiter Olympius was placed upon the great altar of 
burnt- offerings in the true temple at Jerusalem. 

An old man named Athenasus was sent to instruct the 
Jews in the new rites that were to be imposed on them, 
and stringent commands came forth against offering 



332 THE BOOK OF 

sacrifice, observing the Sabbath or any other holy day, or 
circumcising children. Every book of the Law to be 
found was burnt, and Greek festivals were instituted, 
especially the procession when ivy was carried in honour 
of Dionysos and the sacrifices on the king's birthday. 
The young men who had been led astray by Jason, and 
other persons who had learnt to care for favour rather 
than for faith, were content, but terror prevailed with 
many more. A synagogue full of worshippers on the 
Sabbath was burnt, and two women who had circumcised 
their children were hanged with their babes round their 
necks ; other resolute Israelites were unmercifully put to 
death ; and outwardly the king's commands were executed, 
and the chosen people were in a more lamentable condition 
than ever before. Never had paganism so triumphed, for 
though Nebuchadnezzar had ruined the temple, he had 
never set up a rival god there, and the Jews had freely 
professed their own faith at his very court, with their 
priesthood still to lead them, whereas now the high 
priests had been the first to apostatize, and were in exile 
or slain. 

No country is, however, so hard to deal with as a land 
of mountains like Judaea. Small as the district was, it 
was a toilsome and dangerous journey from one city to 
another, and it was scarcely possible to seize an outlaw 
among the network of narrow ravines that intersected it. 

Thus, even when Jerusalem, in her state of desolation, 
Joppa, Jericho, and the other cities, had been forced into 
obedience to the edict of Antiochus, still there was a rem- 
nant of faithful men left in the mountains, who still clave 
steadfastly to God, and poured out their lamentations in 
psalms wrung from the Levites long ago, when they in 
like manner were hiding from the sacrilege of Ahaz. 
With greater force than even these Levites could they 
cry : — 



WORTHIES. 333 

" We see not our tokens, there is not one prophet more : 

No, not one is there among us that understandeth any more." 

And in the prophetic books of Daniel they plainly read 
the prophecy ot all that was come upon them ; of the 
horns of the Macedonian goat, that came up on the 
breaking of the great horn ; and of that little horn which 
had waxed so great as to cast down some of the stars 
from heaven : nay, further, the detailed history of the wars 
and alliances they had themselves seen between Syria 
and Egypt, even to the " vile person," whom they must 
but too well have recognised as their present master ; for 
had he not " polluted the sanctuary of strength, and 
taken away the daily sacrifice, and placed the abomination 
that maketh desolate" upon the altar, as had been fore- 
told, " corrupting many by flatteries " ? 

All this had been long ago foreseen; so, dreadful as it 
was, it did but prove the perfect foreknowledge of the 
Almighty, and strengthen the faith of the true-hearted. 
" The people that do know their God shall be strong and 
do exploits," said the roll of prophecy ; and in one little 
city, lying in the rugged hills around the desecrated Jeru- 
salem, a priestly family had. taken refuge, who were 
resolute against the general apostasy. They were of the 
family or course of Chashmon, whence, in the softened 
Greek in which their history is recorded, they were called 
Asmoneans, and they consisted of an aged father named 
Mattathias, and five sons, Johanan, Simon, Judas, Eleazar, 
and Jonathan, all of them full of that high and fiery spirit 
which had been so strong in Levi himself, and ever and 
anon had broken out in his offspring, in spite of their 
dedication. 

Modin, their home, seems to have stood on a high 
ridge between the Mediterranean and Jerusalem, and 
here they withdrew themselves, mourning in a sort of 
psalm for the ruin they beheld — 



334 THE BOOK OF 

" Woe is me ! wherefore was I born, to see this misery of my 
people ? 
Behold our sanctuary, even our beauty and our glory, 
It is laid waste, and the Gentiles have profaned it." 

They put on sackcloth, fasted and lamented ; but in the 
midst came a summons from the authorities to all the 
men of the place, to meet in the market-place at Modin, 
where they found the royal officers and the Greek priests 
prepared with garlands, victims, and incense, intending 
to compel every man among the assembly to offer sacrifice 
to the gods of the king's choice. 

Mattathias being the principal person present, the 
officer first addressed him : " Thou art a ruler, and an 
honourable and great man in this city, strong in sons and 
brethren. Now, therefore, come thou first, and fulfil the 
kings commandment, like all other nations and the Jews 
likewise. So shalt thou and thy children be among the 
king's friends, and be honoured with silver and gold, and 
many rewards." 

But the old priest stood forth and made answer : — 

" Though every nation in the king's dominions should 
obey him by falling from their fathers' religion, yet will I, 
and my sons and brethren, walk in the covenant of our 
fathers. God forbid that we should forsake the Law and 
Ordinances ! We will not hearken to the king's words, 
nor swerve from our religion either to the right hand or to 
the left." 

While thus Mattathias stood defying the Greek officer 
by the brave confession of his faith, another Jew of Modin 
came up, and, accepting the wreath, was about to cast 
incense on the sacrifice. At this shameful sight the old 
ruler's wrath burnt so hotly, that, shuddering with anger, 
he sprang forward and slew the apostate at the altar, and 
in the tumult that ensued he, his sons, kinsmen, and the 
other faithful Modinites were so strong that they slew the 



WORTHIES. 335 

king's officer, cleared the place of his soldiers, and threw 
down the altar ; but well knowing that he could not hold 
out the place against the garrison of Jerusalem, Matta- 
thias resolved to betake himself to the mountains, like 
David and his valiant men of old ; so he proclaimed in a 
loud voice, " Whosoever is zealous for the Law, and main- 
taineth the Covenant, let him follow me." 

Then, at the head of his five sons, he left the town, and 
entering on those wild deeply-caverned heights which 
grimly border the Dead Sea, was there in an almost 
impregnable fastness, whither faithful Jews flocked to 
join him, bringing with them their wives, children, and 
cattle. One large body who were on their way to join 
them, consisting of many armed men, with their women, 
children, and cattle, were beset by the enemy on the 
Sabbath Day, and summoned to surrender, with the pro- 
mise of their lives if they would obey the king; but they 
utterly refused, and likewise, deeming it contrary to the 
Fourth Commandment either to fight or fortify their 
encampment, they made no attempt to defend themselves, 
but were all massacred, to the number of a thousand. In 
courage and firmness they resembled the Phoenicians of 
Aletta, but here there was the true patience of the saints — 
no ferocity, no self-murder. However, when the priest 
Mattathias and his sons heard of their fate, they held 
counsel together, and decided that it was evidently the 
will of God that the Sabbath should not be so observed 
as to lead to unresisting slaughter, but that when attacked 
on that day they would fight for their lives. 

So many now began to come in to the assistance of the 
family of Mattathias, that he gained numerous victories 
over outlying parties of the Syrian army and drove them 
back into the principal cities. The idolatrous altars 
were pulled down wherever he found them ; children 
received circumcision ; fresh copies of the Law were 



336 THE BOOK OF 

written out, to supply the place of those that had been 
burnt; and where it was not safe to read them in the 
synagogues on the Sabbath Day, rolls of the prophets 
were substituted, so that it became the custom to read 
one lesson from the Law and another from the Prophets. 

The winter in the wild hills of Judah, which David had 
dreaded for his aged parents, is always very inclement, 
and it seems to have been too much for the aged Matta- 
thias, for in B.C. 166, the year after his gallant exploit 
at Modin, he found himself dying. His last exhortation 
to his five sons is a recapitulation of the heroes of Hebrew 
history, and encouragement for the sake of their con- 
stancy in evil times. Abraham, faithful under his trial ; 
Joseph, proof against temptation; Phineas, their own 
ancestor, zealous for the Lord ; Joshua, true to the word ; 
Caleb, a faithful witness before a furious host ; David, 
long persecuted ; Elijah, fervent against idolatry ; the 
Three Children who were preserved in the fire, and 
Daniel from the lions, all are referred to by the dying 
man, to prove that, " throughout all ages, none that put 
their trust in the Lord shall be overcome. Fear not 
then," he said, " the words of a sinful man, for his glory 
shall be as dung and worms. To-day he shall be lifted 
up, and to-morrow he shall not be found, because he is 
returned into his dust, and his thought is come to nothing. 
Wherefore ye, my sons, be valiant, and show yourselves 
men in the behalf of the Law, for by it ye shall obtain 
glory." 

He then appointed his son Simon to be their chief 
counsellor and as a father unto them ; and Judas Mac- 
cabseus, the third brother, who had been strong and 
valiant from his youth, to be their captain. He then 
blessed them, died, and by the valour of his sons was 
buried in the sepulchre of his fathers at Modin, near as it 
was to the enemy. 



WORTHIES. 



337 



The surname of Maccabaeus here given to Judas 
appears to mean " the Hammerer," though it is said by 
some to have been assumed afterwards, from the initial 
letters of the Hebrew words, " Who is like unto Thee, O 
God," which he bore on his banner ; but as all the 
brothers had surnames to distinguish their very common 
names, the first is by far the most probable. In his own 
tongue he would have been Judah Maccabi. He would 
commonly have spoken the Syriac or Aramaic, which the 
Jews had learnt in Babylon ; but as a priest he would 
have been familiar with Hebrew, and as an educated man 
of a ruling family must have spoken and written Greek. 
What we gather of his character from the books of the 
Maccabees, the only authority for his history, would show 
him to have been a more adventurous and simple-hearted 
man than any of his brothers, excepting the younger, 
Eleazar, with less of craft and policy and more of dashing 
and desperate valour, sprung of a deep conviction that 
any death or suffering was better than leaving his people 
to the enemies of God, and the " glorious land" to be 
defiled by idols. It was not the joyous hopeful valour of 
Joshua and David, full of direct inspiration, and backed 
by absolute tangible aid from Heaven ; there were no 
present prophecies, no miraculous interpositions, to sup- 
port the warrior-priest ; and even the old prophecies on 
which the faithful leant were sad and mournful, and told 
of " falling by the sword, and by flame, and by captivity, 
and by spoil many days ;" and that even those of under- 
standing should fall, that they might be tried, and purged, 
and made white. And when Zechariah had spoken of 
the sons of Sion contending with the sons of Greece, and 
being " as the sword of a mighty man," though there was 
assurance of glory, it was vague and distant — distant as 
the great promises on which all Judah fed. Thus it was 
in a grave, melancholy valour and constancy that Judas 
Z 



338 THE BOOK OF 

Maccabaeus girded on his sword ; sure, indeed, that God 
was with him, and that resistance was his bounden duty, 
but far from sure that the result, as regarded himself or 
the present generation, would be victory or success. And 
yet, in this happier than the men we have seen striving 
against the decay of virtue in Greece, he knew that the 
utmost he could endure would be only to make him 
white and purify him, and that for his people and himself 
the year of the redeemed would come, and that he should 
see it — whether here, or from beyond a bloody grave. 

At first, while he was assuming the leadership very like 
that of the judges of old, there was a little respite, for 
Antiochus was celebrating a great festival at Daphne, 
near Antioch, where it is said that his absurdities were so 
great as to scandalize all the beholders from Greece and 
Rome. His persecuting governor at Jerusalem, Apol- 
lonius, endeavoured to put down the rising of the Jews, 
but was overthrown by Judas and slain. His sword was 
brought to Judas, and served him through the rest of his 
life. Another Syrian captain, named Seron, led a con- 
siderable army to attack Judas in his mountain strong- 
hold with very superior numbers. There were some Jews 
who showed much alarm, but Judas made answer, that it 
is as easy to the God of heaven to deliver by few as by 
many. " They fight for violence and for spoil," he said ; 
" but we fight for our lives and for our laws." 

And all along the steep descent of Bethhoron he chased 
and slew his foes, and though the sun stood not still at 
his word, as at that of Joshua, the victory was as com- 
plete, and the Lion of Judah once more lifted his head. 

Antiochus was roused from his amusements at Daphne 
by the tidings of this great revolt. In a great fury he 
assembled his army, intending to put an end to the very 
name of this rebellious people ; but he found his treasury 
exhausted : he had squandered huge sums on the games ; 



WORTHIES. 339 

he gave lavishly to his favourites, and had a heavy tribute 
to pay to Rome ; besides which, the wealthy provinces of 
the far east were becoming remiss in the payment of their 
tribute. As Tacitus, the Roman historian, puts it, " A 
Parthian war prevented him from reforming a most repul- 
sive people ;" for in that light were the staunch virtues 
and spiritual worship of the Jews regarded by the heathen 
world. 

So while he himself set out for Persia to secure the 
source of his wealth, he sent his relative, Lysias, with an 
army to do his best against the repulsive people, with half 
his army, and a supply of elephants, which one would 
have thought not very available in so mountainous a 
country, where even horses were of very doubtful advan- 
tage ; but the terror of their appearance and name was 
the great point. 

A huge force was accordingly placed under the com- 
mand of Ptolemy and Nicanor ; and so certain was the 
destruction of the Jews regarded, that a great number of 
slave merchants accompanied the army, who had already 
bargained with Nicanor to give him one talent for eighty 
Jews, by which means he expected to raise the sum 
needed by the king for his tribute to the Romans, and 
they to make their fortune, since the trustworthiness and 
skilfulness of the Hebrew race rendered them very valu- 
able slaves ; and with this host he encamped at Emmaus, 
very near Jerusalem. 

There was great consternation in Judaea, and the more 
timid fled from the country ; nor could Maccabaeus collect 
more than 6,000 warriors, but he encouraged his friends 
with all his might. " They trust in their weapons and 
boldness,' 7 ' he said, " but our confidence is in the Almighty 
God, who at a beck can cast down both them that come 
against us, and also all the world." 

In this confidence he collected his army at Maspha, as 
z 2 



34Q THE BOOK OF 

they now called Mizpeh, where Samuel had long ago 
rallied Israel against the Philistines, and there, looking to 
the holy mountain of God, as it lay desolate, the thin 
thread of smoke of an idolatrous sacrifice rising up from 
it, and David's tower, the stronghold of the enemy, they 
fasted, put on sackcloth, and prayed aloud. Eleazar, the 
youngest brother, read out the Book of the Law to the 
weeping people, and then Judas made the old proclama- 
tion that only the strong and unencumbered should go to 
battle, but the busy, the newly married, and the faint- 
hearted should go to their homes. Six thousand remained 
with him, whom he divided into four bodies, giving the 
command to himself and his three brothers, and choosing 
as his watchword " Eleazar, the help of God !" the name 
of his brother, he made his final exhortation : " Arm 
yourselves and be valiant men, and see that ye be in 
readiness in the morning, that ye may fight with these 
nations that are assembled against us to destroy our sanc- 
tuary • for it is better for us to die in battle than to behold 
the calamities of our people and our sanctuary. Never- 
theless, as the will of God is in heaven, so let Him do." 

After this steadfast but mournful summons, Maccabaeus 
dismissed his men to their tents. But immediately after he 
received intelligence that 5,000 foot and 1,000 horse had 
left the main body at Emmaus, intending to fall on him 
at Mizpeh and destroy him by a night attack. He at 
once called up his troops, and himself quitted the camp 
with the 3,000 under his command, so that Gorgias found 
nothing but the tents and entrenchments, and proceeded 
in pursuit of the Jews, as he supposed, into the gorges of 
the mountains. 

However, Judas, instead of flying, had marched straight 
on the camp at Emmaus, and arriving at daybreak, 
offered battle, sounding his trumpets and making so un- 
expected an attack that in a short time they were masters 



WORTHIES. ' 341 

of the field, and the enemy were flying in all directions. 
Here Judas showed himself an admirable general. " Be 
not greedy of the spoil," he proclaimed, " inasmuch as 
there is a battle before us, and Gorgias and his host are 
here by us in the mountain ; but stand ye now against the 
enemies and overcome them ; and after that ye may boldly 
take the spoils." 

While he was speaking, some of the division of Gorgias 
were seen looking down from the mountain passes, but 
when they saw their own camp on fire and the Jews in 
good order, they were panic-struck and fled in disorder, 
while the Jews collected a great booty of silver, gold, blue 
silk, and " purple of the sea," and returning to Mizpeh 
sung hymns of thanksgiving, keeping a most joyful Sab- 
bath of rest on the following day ; and then, after setting 
apart a portion of the prey for widows, orphans, sick, and 
maimed, they divided the remainder among themselves. 

Two more lieutenants of Lysias were defeated, and Lysias 
himself advancing from Idumea was so completely beaten 
at Bethsura, that Judea was absolutely cleared from all 
the Graeco- Syrians for the time, except in the garrisons in 
the chief towns, and in the tower on Mount Sion ; and 
this happy interval was employed by Maccabaeus in 
cleansing the temple. When the faithful Jews entered 
and beheld the sanctuary desolate, the altar profaned, the 
courts overgrown with a forest of shrubs, they rent their 
clothes, made great lamentation, and threw ashes on their 
heads, falling on their faces to the earth, while the 
trumpets blew an alarm. 

Then Judas appointed a part of his army to watch the 
enemy in the tower of David, while he superintended the 
purifying of the temple. He and his brothers were too 
much of warriors to fulfil their priestly office ; but he chose 
faithful men from among the priesthood, who cleansed 
the holy place, and carried out the defiled stones, 



342 THE BOOK OF 

restoring all things that could be replaced. The great 
altar of burnt- offerings which had been profaned by sacri- 
fices to Jupiter they took down, and hid the stones in one 
of the many mountain caves till some prophet should 
arise to tell them what ought to be done with them, and 
after building a new one, they dedicated it with great joy, 
with the beloved old songs of the Levites which had been 
so long unheard, and with a renewal of the sacrifices that 
had ceased so long. He also so strengthened the walls as 
to make it a strong fortress of defence. 

Such was the glory and the joy of Judas Maccabaeus ; 
and it was followed up by many successes over the 
neighbouring heathen nations, who were always ready to 
assault and fall upon the Jews, so that the nation began 
to acquire a fame such as it had scarcely known since 
the days of Jehoshaphat. The three years since the 
revolt of Mattathias had changed Judaea from a down- 
trodden province to a valiant and independent country. 

Antiochus had in the meantime been penetrating into 
Persia, and arrived at Elymais, where was a temple that 
was reported to abound in treasure. He had no respect 
for Persian worship, and was about to plunder this temple 
like the Jewish sanctuary, but the Persians ran together 
fully armed, and beat him off with such success as filled 
him with rage and fury ; but finding he could not main- 
tain his ground there, he withdrew to Ecbatana. 

There he was met by messengers from Judaea with an 
account of the defeat of his army. In a still greater fury 
he set out to punish the rebellion, and on his way through 
Babylonia met the further report of the battle of Bethsura, 
and of the recover}- of the temple. He fell into a violent 
passion, and commanded the utmost speed, uttering loud 
threats, and declaring that he would make Jerusalem the 
burying-place of the whole Jewish nation. 

Almost as he spoke an agonizing pain seized him, but 



WORTHIES. 343 

defying his suffering he still called to the driver to press 
forward, until, losing his balance, he fell and was terribly 
bruised. He was placed in a litter, but still insisted on 
being carried forward, although his disease became 
frightful and disgusting to the last degree. At last a con- 
viction flashed on him that his misery was the reward of 
his sacrilege ; and sometimes he groaned out vows that he 
would turn Jew himself, restore the temple and load it 
with gifts, while at others he thought he saw avenging 
. spectres reproaching him with trying to violate the temple 
of Elymais. In this condition he died miserably, B.C. 164, 
leaving a son of nine years old, called Antiochus Eupator, 
to the regency of his favourite Philip ; but the govern- 
ment was seized by Lysias, who, weary of the unsuccessful 
war with the Jews, offered them peace, and promised 
them liberty to observe their own laws, which was eagerly 
accepted. Judas now applied himself to fortifying Beth- 
sura as a defence against the Idumeans. 

The peace was, however, soon broken. The Syrians 
and Greeks in the cities committed all manner of vio- 
lence. The men of Joppa in especial drowned full two 
hundred Jews, whom they had decoyed into their boats ; 
and Judas was called upon to avenge them, as verily he 
did, by setting fire to all the ships in the harbour at night. 
Timotheus, his former enemy, now invaded Judea, but 
only to meet with another complete repulse, with the loss 
of 30,000 men. The Jews were gratified further by 
hearing that their apostate high priest, Menelaus, the 
author of all the mischief, had fallen into disgrace at 
Antioch, and had been smothered in a tower filled with 
ashes. 

But in 163 Lysias, taking with him his young king 
and an enormous army, with thirty-two elephants, de- 
scended from the Idumean frontier upon Palestine, where 
Judas was still endeavouring to take the fortress upon 



344 THE BOOK OF 

Mount Sion. The Jews received the tidings with a 
general fast and supplication, lying prostrate on their 
faces in the temple, and then armed themselves to relieve 
Bethsura, which was the first place attacked by the 
Syrians. The Jews marched to a place called Bath- 
zacharias, an excellent place of defence, being a sort of 
peninsula of rock with a narrow isthmus behind, and 
with valleys overgrown with thickets on either side. 

The historian of the Maccabees gives a most effective 
picture of the Graeco-Syrian host and of the elephants. 
" To the end they might provoke the elephants to fight, 
they showed them the blood of grapes and of mulberries ; 
moreover, they divided the beasts among the armies, and 
for every elephant they appointed a thousand men, armed 
with coats of mail, and with helmets of brass on their 
heads ; and besides this, for every beast were ordained five 
hundred horsemen of the best. And upon the beasts were 
there strong towers of wood, which covered every one of 
them, and were girt fast unto them with devices ; there 
were also upon every one two-and-thirty strong men that 
fought upon them, besides the Indian that ruled him. 
Now when the sun shone upon the shields of gold and 
brass, the mountains glistered therewith, and shined like 
lamps of fire ; so part of the king's army being spread on 
the high mountains, and part in the valleys below, they 
marched on safely and surely." 

Against this tremendous-looking host Judas, having 
chosen one of his beautiful watchwords, " Victory is of 
God," went forth at night with some picked men, caused 
great confusion, and killed four elephants, departing by 
the break of day. But this " taste of the manliness of 
the Jews," as the Second Book of the Maccabees calls it, 
does not seem to have prevented a great battle the next 
day, in which the patriot army were defeated, in spite of 
their desperate valour. It was in this battle that Eleazar, 



WORTHIES. > 345 

the brother of Judas, perceiving an elephant larger and 
more adorned than the rest, fancied that the king must 
be on it, and creeping under it thrust his sword into it 
from below, regardless of his own inevitable death under 
the falling weight ; and from this exploit he was ever 
after known as Avaran, or Savaran, from a word meaning 
to pierce an animal behind. He was buried in the tomb 
of his forefathers at Modin. 

Judas was obliged to retreat, and leave Bethsura to 
capitulate for want of provisions, which had not been 
stored in consequence of a Sabbatical year. The same 
cause made the siege of the temple fortress at Jerusalem 
almost successful ; the Jewish garrison was reduced to 
great straits, and the army could not be kept together 
without stores. The enemy had almost obtained posses- 
sion of the holy mountain, when tidings came that Philip, 
the regent appointed by the late king, was on his way to 
assert his claim ; and Lysias, wishing to be free to turn 
all his strength against him, offered peace to the Jews, 
and even dismantled the fortress on the Hill of Sion. 

There was another respite for Jerusalem, while the 
Syrian princes were disputing at Antioch. In 162 that 
Demetrius, son of Seleucus, whom he had sent as a boy 
to be a hostage at Rome in the stead of Antiochus 
Epiphanes, made his escape, and being supposed by the 
army and nation to have come backed up by the Roman 
power, all joined him, and offered to give up to him his 
young cousin Eupator and the regent Lysias. " Let me 
not see their faces," he said ; and the army took the 
delicate hint, and saved him the pain of condemning 
them. 

Demetrius, coming fresh from Rome, had no expe- 
rience of Jewish valour and constancy, and he lent a will- 
ing ear to Alcimus, a Grascized Jewish prisoner, on whom 
Lysias had conferred the title of high priest upon the exe- 



346 THE BOOK OF 

cution of Menelaus, and who now persuaded the new 
king to send an army to reinstate him and punish the 
Jews, whom he represented as rebellious against their 
lawful high priest. 

He was really nearer to the direct line of Aaron than 
were the Asmonean family, and this fact made a large 
body of the Assideans, as the more precisely orthodox 
Jews were called, go over to him ; but they soon found 
out their error, for he caused sixty of them to be mas- 
sacred in one day, and showed great cruelty to all who 
had followed the Maccabaean standard. Upon this Judas 
took the field again ; whereupon the intruder hurried back 
to the king with his complaints, and Nicanor, " the master 
of the elephants," was again sent into Judaea, with orders 
to seize Maccabaeus, and send him in chains to Antioch, 
and to ravage the country. Policy was Nicanor's instru- 
ment this time. He appointed a peaceable interview with 
Judas, to which each was to come with a few attendants : 
but it soon became evident that treachery was intended. 
Judas withdrew, assembled his forces, and fought an- 
other battle at Capharsamala, evidently near Jerusalem, 
since the defeated Syrians took refuge in the tower of 
David, 

The priests in the temple tried to propitiate Nicanor, by 
showing him that they offered sacrifices, and prayed for 
the king's health ; but he insulted and abused them, 
vowing that he would burn and lay waste the sanctuary, 
unless Maccabaeus were delivered up to him ; and he then 
went out, taking with him many unwilling Jews of the 
party of Alcimus, to attack Judas in his stronghold in the 
Benjamite hills. 

Judas was at Adasa, where he was greatly comforted 
by a dream, in which Onias, the last good high priest, 
was praying for the whole body of the Jews, and Jeremiah 
the prophet, " with white hairs and exceedingly glorious," 



WORTHIES. 347 

stood by him, and placed in the hand of Judas a sword 
of gold as the gift of God. Nicanor lay at Bethhoron; 
and there the battle took place, and proved the third 
great victory of the chosen people on that favoured spot. 
Thirty-five thousand enemies were slain, and among them 
" Nicanor lay dead in his harness." The pursuit drove 
the fugitives fairly out of the country, and the head and 
right hand of Nicanor were brought to the temple, and 
hung on the outer walls of the city. 

This victory gave the Jews tranquillity for the time, but 
Judas felt that to be more than a brave outlaw he must 
be strengthened by some foreign alliance against a power 
of such disproportionate resources as was Syria. Egypt 
had fallen into helpless decay, and he therefore decided 
on having recourse to the great Roman republic, which 
had already put a bridle upon the Syrian power. The 
uprightness and discipline of the Roman seem to have 
w^aked a sympathising admiration in the mind of the great 
w r arrior-priest, and he sent an embassy to entreat the 
alliance of the Senate. 

A favourable answer was returned. It was the Roman 
policy to depress and annoy the Syrians as much as pos- 
sible, and the cause of a little subject state was exactly 
the handle they desired to take up. A letter was written 
on tables of brass and sent to Jerusalem ; but the brave 
hand it was intended for never received it. Alcimus, 
with his friend Bacchides, had come forth with another 
invading host ; and it would seem that the alliance with 
the Romans had been displeasing to some of the Jews, 
for Judas could only get together 3,000 men, and they at 
the sight of the 20,000 camped at Eleasa were so alarmed 
that only 600 remained by their leader. 

Still he refused all solicitations to retreat, saying worthy 
last words for a hero, " God forbid that I should do this 
thing, and flee away from them ! If our time be come, let 



348 THE BOOK OF 

us die manfully for our brethren, and let us not stain 
our honour." 

The battle lasted all day, but it was one in which num- 
bers gave the advantage. Judas fell before the end of the 
day. and was buried in the sepulchre at Modin, while the 
song of David rose up from the mountains, " How are 
the mighty fallen ! " 

He fell B.C. 162 ; but his country's cause was won. His 
brothers well kept up the spirit he had roused, and for 
nearly a hundred years Judaea was a brave and inde- 
pendent state, revived out of her dust, and observant of 
her Law as she had never been in her most splendid days. 



WORTHIES. 349 



CAIUS JULIUS CESAR. 

B.C. 100 — 44. 

The verdict of our forefathers has placed among the 
three Worthies of classical antiquity one to whom that 
title is due rather from his rare abilities than from his 
moral character, which, in some respects, fell far short 
even of the heathen pitch of excellence ; for, in truth, his 
endeavour was rather to be great than to be good. He 
had no real faith in the remnants of truth in the national 
religion, nor had he any standard of ideal excellence, like 
the earnest students and actors of philosophical systems. 
He was not the obedient self-sacrificing servant of his 
country's law and glory that others made themselves ; still 
less was he a worshipper and would-be restorer of the 
past. His philosophy was the Epicurean, which chiefly 
took heed to present advantage and enjoyment ; and 
though his wonderful genius and practical nature made 
him seek these often in a generous and beneficent man- 
ner, yet there was a want of elevation in his aims ; and 
though his clear sense discerned what was the only prac- 
ticable course for his countrymen, and forced them into 
it, his work was more one of personal ambition than of 
patriotism. 

Nevertheless, with all his crimes, Caius Julius Caesar 
was undoubtedly, in his own time, " the foremost man of 
all this world,*' and in the front rank of the great men of 



350 THE BOOK OF 

all time ; and his powers and some of his qualities merit 
from us the careful attention that our ancestors claimed 
for him by numbering him with the Worthies. 

He was born in a time when virtue was hard of attain- 
ment. Traditionary gleams of truth had nearly disap- 
peared from both the Greek and Roman myths, when 
they had been mixed up together with importations from 
Egypt, Syria, and Phoenicia, and philosophy had nearly 
worn its clue threadbare in the labyrinthine mazes of 
speculation, so that all life and light were gone out of the 
inner man ; even while the education, which had been 
first taken up by the Cornelian family, had been carried to 
the highest pitch, and scholarship, learning, and wit were in 
the utmost esteem. Moreover, the very conquests of Rome 
were changing her whole character, and making some 
difference in her constitution necessary, so that the rotten- 
ness of the state showed itself in horrible convulsions at 
the centre. All Italy, Greece, and Carthage had been 
subdued ; Syria had no longer a king ; Egypt had been 
scotched, and was nearly at the last gasp ; and the sur- 
rounding nations were either abject allies existing on 
sufferance, or enemies fighting the last battles of inde- 
pendence. The old, stern, simple race of peasant kings 
had, as Cato the censor foresaw, departed for ever. A 
consul, after his year of office at Rome, instead of coming 
back to his farm, had five or three years of government in 
one or other of the provinces, where he was absolute for 
the time over the lives and property of the natives, and 
helped himself nearly as he chose, being secure .that a 
barbarian would hardly be listened to at Rome if he com- 
plained of a Roman magistrate. The provinces were so 
many in number, that not only ex-consuls, but ex-praetors 
and ex-quaestors looked to them as their employment and 
reward at the end of the year of office, and came home 
with great wealth, and habits of solitary unquestioned 



WORTHIES. 351 

authority, that made them evil companions to one another, 
and fierce, boastful tyrants to those beneath them in rank, 
while their wealth was used to the detriment of their 
family and the corruption of the plebeians. 

All these great prizes lay in the gift of the Roman 
people ; i.e. those who held the franchise or power of 
election — the old patrician and plebeian races. The 
patricians, having been always a limited number of fami- 
lies, without any opening for promotion of others into 
their ranks, naturally became fewer in number, while the 
plebeians increased, since any man who obtained Roman 
citizenship was added to their ranks. Many of this order 
were very rich ; and as they were eligible for magis- 
tracies, they acquired seats in the Senate, and their older 
and better families were, to all intents and purposes, on 
equal terms with the patricians ; but it was the mass of 
idle poor who were the great difficulty. Having the dis- 
posal of such enormous prizes in their hands, they were 
naturally courted by all who desired to be elected, and 
were kept in good humour by supplies of provisions, and 
by perpetual shows. What would have been the use, 
they argued, of ruling the world, if they had not plenty 
of food and amusement ? So Sicily and Egypt were 
expected to keep them supplied with corn freely dis- 
tributed, and every person who wanted to be elected to 
an office, every victorious general who came home for a 
triumph, contended who should display the most exciting 
entertainment, showing either strange wild beasts set 
to tear one another to pieces for the amusement of the 
people, or, still worse, slaves called gladiators, trained to 
fight with one another for the public diversion. Brutal, 
selfish, and turbulent such a state of things could not fail 
to make the people of the single city that held the govern- 
ment of the world in its hands ; for though there were 
many other citizens resident in the few favoured Italian 



352 THE BOOK OF 

cities or in the colonies, no votes for Roman magistrates 
could be given except at Rome itself. The best hope 
for Rome would have been to have diminished the 
number of plebeians who lived on little but their vote, by 
settling them upon Italian farms ; and this had been 
attempted by Tiberius and Caius Sempronius Gracchus, 
the grandsons of the great Scipio Africanus, but they had 
both perished in the attempt to contend with the patricians 
and the wealthy plebeians. As another remedy, it was 
proposed to admit many more Italian cities to the fran- 
chise, which would have made the interests of Rome those 
of the whole country, and freed nations of kindred blood 
and like manners from the galling condition of pro- 
vincials ; and this point was the subject of the fierce 
struggle, fought out with all the reckless fury of patri- 
cian and plebeian jealousy, and with the bitter per- 
sonal hatred of two rival generals, at the time when the 
greatest man of all Rome came into the world — a most 
disorganized, ferocious, and demoralized world. He was 
born at Rome on the 12th of July, B.C. 100 — the month 
that bears his name — and was the son of one of the veiy 
oldest patrician families, whose nomen of Julius was said to 
be derived from lulus, the son of ^Eneas of Troy, and thus, 
according to tradition, the grandson of the goddess Venus. 
The cognomen of the family, Cassar, was by some explained 
to apply to their long hair (ccesaries) ; by others to the 
Punic name for an elephant, which a Julius of old was 
said to have killed. His prasnomen of Caius had always 
been given to the eldest son of the family, and he was the 
only son of his parents, Caius Julius Caesar and Aurelia, 
who had besides only two daughters, both called from 
their father, Julia. 

The father could not have been a man of mark, since 
he never attained any rank beyond that of praetor ; but 
this may have been on account of early death. The 



WORTHIES. 353 

mother, Aurelia, was a woman of very distinguished abili- 
ties, highly educated, and of much resolution ; and she is 
said to have done much for the instruction of her son, 
who was certainly not only the greatest scholar and 
general of his day, but likewise the most graceful, polite, 
and considerate of gentlemen. 

His personal attractiveness was great. The worn, 
aquiline profile familiar to us was that of his later years ; 
but though it has gained in power what it has lost in 
beauty, yet it is full of grandeur ; and we can well believe 
that the deep, soft, yet piercing dark eyes, and smooth, 
white, marble-like skin, the black hair, and rounded out- 
lines, rendered the countenance one of the most beautiful 
in all Rome. His figure was tall and slender, with a great 
air of dignity, and of easy gentleness and affability ; and 
though his health had at first been frail, he had become 
strong and hardy as he grew up. He could ride with the 
reins dropped and his hands behind his back, and was 
excellent in all martial exercises. His voice was clear 
and trumpet-like, and his natural eloquence was culti- 
vated to the utmost by the study of rhetoric — the art as 
needful to a republican statesman as the use of arms to a 
warrior ; and he was further instructed in systems of 
philosophy by one Gnipho, a Gaul by birth, but who 
had studied at Alexandria, which rivalled Athens as the 
University of the ancient world, and had become deeply 
learned in Greek literature and science. For many years 
he kept school in the Julian house on -the Palatine hill, 
where almost all the grandest old families of Rome had 
their hereditary abodes. Within these were handsome 
marble-lined buildings, arranged around a cloistered 
quadrangle called the peristyle ; but outside they were 
encrusted with little cell-like houses of slaves, freedmen, 
clients, and shopkeepers, like the shell of a crab with 
corallines and parasites ; and the larger such a following 
A A 



354 THE BOOK OF 

was, the wealthier and more formidable was the great man 
within. The philosopher Guipho profited by the shelter 
of this great household to keep his school for the Roman 
youth, and all that the young Caesar there learnt was 
made the more interesting to him by his mother, Aurelia, 
who made his education her especial care. 

By birth his family belonged to the exclusive patrician 
party ; but his father's sister, Julia, was married to the stout 
old plebeian general Caius Marius, the great champion of 
the extension of the franchise to the Italian cities, and the 
savage foe of Publius Cornelius Sulla, the equally able 
and more cruel if less rude defender of the patricians. 
In the year 86, that of Marius's success and bloody 
vengeance, Caesar was but thirteen years old, and the 
only benefit he derived from the pre-eminence of his rela- 
tive was the being made Priest of Jupiter, one of the 
dignities reserved for noble birth, and he was also 
betrothed to Cossutia, a rich heiress. 

Just in the zenith of his power, on the sixteenth day of 
his seventh consulship, Marius died, and two years later 
the elder Julius Caesar died suddenly at Pisa, and Caius 
Caesar (as his contemporaries generally called him) being 
left to act for himself, broke off his engagement to Cos- 
sutia, and married Cornelia, the daughter of Lucius 
Cornelius Cinna, the chief friend and supporter of Marius, 
and who was consul for the fourth time. Scarcely, how- 
ever, had the marriage taken place, before Sulla, after a 
grand course of victories over Mithridates, king of Pontus, 
was reported to be coming home, thirsting for revenge ; 
and Cinna, who intended to oppose him, was murdered 
by his own troops just before he embarked. 

Sulla came home furious, and being eagerly welcomed 
by the patrician party, was made Dictator, and set himself 
to restore order by the most violent and bloody measures, 
which filled Rome with terror, and drove almost every 



WORTHIES. 355 

one to submit to his pleasure. The young patricians who 
had married into the families of partisans of Marius were 
commanded to separate from their wives ; and ail obeyed 
in the most abject manner except Caesar, whose wife had 
just borne him a daughter, Julia, his only child, and who, 
though only seventeen years old, showed himself resolute 
in not giving way to interference that no Roman law 
sanctioned. 

As Dictator Sulla could do whatever he pleased : and 
he caused the contumacious youth to be deprived of his 
priesthood, deprived of his wife's dowry, and declared 
incapable of inheriting his father's property. The band 
of murderers whom Sulla employed to cut off all the 
enemies he could not condemn openly were known to 
be in search of him ; and though he was very ill at the 
time, with one of those low fevers that have always been 
the curse of the Campagna di Roma, he was forced to 
wander about the country, never spending two nights in 
the same place. 

At last the assassins actually came up with him, and 
he found himself in their clutches ; but his persuasive 
tongue, and the promise of two talents, gained over their 
chief to let him go ; and while he still lurked in the Sabine 
country, his uncle Aurelius, his other relations, and the 
Vestal Virgins, who had power to save the life of any 
criminal, interceded for him. It was represented that he 
was a mere lad, whose very obstinacy in his passion for 
his young wife showed him to have no aims beyond the 
amusements into which he had already thrown himself 
ardently, and that the costly rings that adorned his dainty 
hands, his long fringed toga, bound round the loins by a belt 
after the newest fashion, and his elegant custom of arrang- 
ing his black locks with one finger, betokened him to be a 
mere fine gentleman, delicate in health and manners, and 
chiefly occupied with adorning his handsome person. 
A A 2 



356 THE BOOK OF 

Sulla, the most far-sighted man of his time, yielded 
against his judgment. " Let it be as you will," he said, 
" but you have begged for the ruin of our cause. There 
is many a Marius in that young trifler ." 

He could not, however, endure to remain at Rome, and 
set off for Asia Minor, where hostilities were smouldering 
on with Mithridates, and where he served his apprentice- 
ship in arms after the fashion of young patricians, who 
used to form a sort of volunteer staff, dining and con- 
sorting with the general in command. The praetor, 
Marcus Minucius Thermus, seems to have discerned his 
talents, and employed him in the siege of Mitylene, where 
he saved the life of a fellow-soldier, and was rewarded by 
the wreath of oak-leaves, a civic crown, as it was called, 
which commemorated the rescue of a Roman citizen. 
He was also employed in negotiations with Nicomedes, 
king of Bithynia, one of the fragmentary realms of Asia 
Minor, and managed them so well, that some years after 
this petty kingdom was bequeathed to Rome by the 
childless monarch. 

He was serving in the fleet of Caius Servilius against 
the nest of pirates who harboured in the rocky nook of 
Cilicia, when tidings arrived of the death of Sulla, where- 
upon he instantly hurried back to Rome ; but though he 
impeached two of Sulla's officers before the Senate for 
their ill-treatment of provincials, and carried through his 
case, he found that matters were not ripe for an attack 
upon Sulla's system, and that his youthfulness — for he 
was but twenty-one — prevented him from acting as a 
leader, while a follower he neither could nor would be. 

He therefore set forth for the island of Rhodes, where 
a great Greek rhetorician, named Molo, kept what was 
then the most celebrated school of eloquence, which was 
frequented by Romans, Greeks, provincial Gauls, and 
Spaniards, as the place where elegance in oratory, 



WORTHIES. 357 

and aptness in illustration or argument, could best be 
practised by debates presided over by this able master. 
On his way thither, near the little isle then called Phar- 
macusa, the galley that conveyed him was boarded and 
captured by a crew of Cilician pirates, savage semi- 
Greeks and Syrians, who from their bays and gulfs 
infested the whole eastern Mediterranean. When they 
caught a Roman magistrate, they were wont to put him 
to death, to show their contempt and hatred for the city 
that was enslaving all the rest of the world ; and it was 
well for the tall, pale, elegant-looking gentleman whom 
they had seized, that he was too youthful to have borne 
any office. They however suspected the rank and wealth 
of their prey, and they promised him his release for 
a ransom of twenty talents. He coolly told them he 
was worth more, and that his price ought to be fifty; 
and messengers were sent to raise the sum from the 
provinces of Asia Minor, while he remained in the pirate 
ship with only his physician and two slaves. To show that 
he had no intention of trying to swim off, he never loosed 
his belt or took off his sandals ; and meanwhile his easy 
ascendency mastered them all so entirely, that they might 
have been taken for guards around a prince, and were 
silent whenever he sent them word that he wished to 
sleep. He wrote verses and composed speeches to recite 
to them, and diverted himself with their rude criticisms ; 
and he joined in their sports and exercises, so as quite to 
gain their hearts, though he always told them that as soon 
as he was free he should come after them, and give them 
their deserts. 

He kept his word. After thirty-eight days his ransom 
was brought ; he was released, and went straight to 
Miletus, where he hired ships and sailors, and led them 
himself to attack and capture his captors. He put them 
into the prison at Pergamus, and went himself to the pro- 



358 THE BOOK OF 

consul of Asia, Junius Silanus, to give an account of his 
prisoners. He was told to sell them as slaves, but this 
would probably only have been giving them an oppor- 
tunity of escaping and beginning their trade again, and 
the idea of making money by them seemed to him an 
offence. So he caused them all to be crucified, and it was 
regarded as a great stretch of mercy that he had them 
previously strangled. 

He then went to Rhodes, and pursued his studies there, 
until his uncle, Aurelius Cotta, came out to take the 
government of Bithynia on the death of Nicomedes, 
under whom he served for some little time. On the sud- 
den death of Aurelius, Caesar was named in his stead 
Pontifex Maximus, or chief of the college of priests — the 
head of all the religious ceremonies of Rome. Probably, 
in the decline of the great patrician families, there were 
few persons qualified by birth for this office ; for it seems 
a strange one to have conferred on so young a man, who 
had done nothing memorable as yet, and was absent from 
Rome. He never was more than a mere political public 
minister as regarded worship, with little or no faith in the 
deities it professed to honour, and yet his having been 
Pontifex Maximus had important consequences which we 
still feel. He was thus obliged to return to Rome, and 
knowing that the Cilician pirates were on the watch for 
him, that they might revenge the death of their compeers, 
he crossed the Adriatic Sea in a little four-oared boat, 
accompanied only by two friends and ten slaves, that he 
might elude their notice. It was an anxious passage, 
and once, when a sail was seen in the distance, he sat 
with his hand clasped upon his sword, ready to sell his life 
dearly ; but it proved a false alarm, and these hair-breadth 
escapes contributed to a feeling that he bore a charmed 
life, protected by destiny. 

He came back to Rome B.C. 74, twenty-five years of 



WORTHIES. 359 

age, and prepared to work himself forward, as any man of 
spirit could do in a republic, and as was especially easy 
to one of the aristocracy, and he already known to be 
attached to the cause of the lower orders, who always set 
an especial value on the partisanship of a man of noble 
birth. 

The old constitution had been repaired and set in 
motion again by Sulla during his dictatorship, and it had 
the support of all the old conservative spirits, who looked 
loyally and regretfully back to the grand old days when 
Rome had been a temple, and her Senate a tribunal of 
peasant kings ; and shut their eyes to the fact, that with- 
out poverty it was impossible to maintain simplicity and* 
severity, and that the machinery that had been sufficient 
for the government of one city and a few adjacent pro- 
vinces was incapable of working for a huge empire, 
besides being clogged at the very springs by the idle 
multitude at home. Factions were ever at work ; robbery 
and rapine reigned unchecked ; the provinces were mis- 
managed, the people oppressed, the rich shamelessly licen- 
tious, the poor starving ; but without a revolution no 
efficient remedy could be applied ; and the best of the 
men then living at Rome could only endeavour to set 
matters straight by their personal ascendency, or by 
appeals to old customs, without understanding the real 
needs of the times. 

Three men stood foremost in the world into which 
Julius Caesar now plunged. These were Marcus Porcius 
Cato, Marcus Tullius Cicero, and Cnaeus Pompeius 
Magnus. 

The first of these — whom if left to ourselves we should 
have chosen as the nearest approach to a Worthy of that 
period — was five years younger than Caesar. He was the 
great grandson of the censor Cato, the enemy of Scipio, 
and had inherited much of his strong, stern integrity of 



360 THE BOOK OF 

nature, with something likewise of his severity, though 
with less captiousness and bitterness. Perhaps, however, 
our sympathies are more with him than with his ancestor, 
because the evils with which he fought were developed, 
and the elder Cato attacked the germ while it was yet appa- 
rently innocent, and showed prejudice and hostility to a 
far more blameless man than was the foe of his descendant. 
The plain, self-denying habits of the censor were the 
model of the younger Cato, and the principles of the Stoic 
philosophy led him to the most resolute persistence in all 
that could tend to make the body only the servant of the 
soul. But though no one could fail to respect Cato, there 
' were many who hated him as a perpetual rebuke both in 
word and example. 

Marcus Tullius Cicero, who was born in 106, and thus 
was by six years the elder of Caesar, is the Roman whose 
private life and character has become the most minutely 
known to us moderns, through his own ample corre- 
spondence. Belonging to the equestrian order, his won- 
derful talents as an orator and pleader had made him 
already renowned before he reached the legal age for 
holding office. He was a man of peace, essentially a 
scholar and a lawyer, and with all a lawyer's love for 
ancient precedent and dislike of change ; and he had, to 
a great degree, that intense sensitiveness and refinement 
which almost always accompanies great powers of elo- 
quence. That sensitiveness made him vain, and anxious 
for applause, and though he could often take a grand, 
manly, and upright part, the unreserve with which he 
showed his alarms, vexations, and weaknesses, has made 
him, perhaps, to be less esteemed than he deserved. He 
had none of Cato's hard unbending character^ but loved 
all kinds of refined enjoyment, and was one of the most 
elegant and cultivated of men ; and although as faithful 
as Cato could be in sacrificing himself and all he had to 



WORTHIES. 361 

the good of his country and to the maintenance of her 
old constitution, what was proud satisfaction to the one 
was acute misery to the other. 

Neither Cato nor Cicero had any warlike turn, but the 
third great man of Rome, born in the same year with 
Cicero, but two months later, was great in arms after the 
old Roman fashion, and his surname of Magnus was not 
an inheritance, but had been bestowed by Sulla himself, 
when at twenty-five years of age he had returned from 
a great victory over the Numidians in Africa, while still 
only a legate and having borne no public office, so that it 
was with some difficulty that he obtained permission to 
have a triumph. Pompey, as barbarous usage makes 
English people call him, was a man of considerable 
talent as a general, and thus had become the most 
eminent man then in Rome, and was looked to as likely 
to be the best defender of the old constitution ; but he 
was not as able a statesman as he was a soldier, and his 
policy became wavering when he came in contact with 
the perplexities that prevailed there. His demeanour, 
too, had just that mixture of pride and vanity that is most 
apt to give offence, and though his nature was high and 
honourable, there was a selfishness in him that generally 
made him fail under stress of trial. He was regarded as 
the supporter of the old constitution at Rome, but as 
being more on the plebeian side than on that of the patri- 
cians. The Emperor Napoleon gives a vivid picture of 
the four great men of Rome, when he says that events 
were like a torrent, inundating and bearing all things 
away with it. Pompey thought he could command the 
waves and direct them ; Cicero at times let himself drift 
with the current, -at times fancied he was stemming the 
flood ; Cato stood resistless and dauntless, ready rather 
to be swept away than voluntarily yield an inch ; while 
Caesar endeavoured to dig a bed for the torrent. At the 



362 THE BOOK OF 

time of Caesar's return to Rome Pompey was absent, being 
engaged in quelling a formidable insurrection in Spain, 
where a Roman general of great ability had, in the uni- 
versal disorganization, become very powerful ; and the re- 
bellion was not finally crushed till his assassination, which 
brought Pompey back to Rome a few months after Csesar 
had arrived there. 

The first step in the public sendee was given to Caesar 
by making him a military tribune, thus giving him the 
command of 1,000 men; but he did not enter on any 
campaign, although there was a terrible war going on in 
the south of Italy with a multitude of runaway slaves and 
gladiators, who had their stronghold in the dormant 
crater of Mount Vesuvius, until they were at last put 
down by Marcus Licinius Crassus, who hanged 6,000 of 
them along the road-sides. Cato served in this war, but, 
when promotion was offered him, said he would not have 
it, for he had done nothing to deserve it. 

Probably Caesar saw nothing likely to gain credit could 
happen in this miserable war ; so he remained at home- 
courting the favour of the people by such lavish gifts and 
splendid amusements, that he soon exhausted his means, 
borrowed of all his friends, was a universal debtor, and 
was regarded as one of the most wasteful spendthrifts in 
Rome. He made speeches in the Forum on every occa- 
sion, pleading the cause of any one who had a complaint 
against the patrician order, and making himself observed 
as the friend of the commonalty and opponent of exclusive 
privileges. 

He was soon elected to the first of the magistracies that 
could be held — that of quaestor ; and while he was in this 
office his young wife Cornelia died. The custom was that 
the corpse should be carried from home on a bier, pre- 
ceded by musicians, wailing women, and liberated slaves 
in the cap of liberty, as well as by statues of the deceased 



WORTHIES. 363 

and the family ancestors, and followed by the relations and 
friends of both sexes in mourning dresses, with dishevelled 
hair, lamenting aloud as they went to the family monu- 
ment, outside which a pile was ready to consume the body 
with fire. 

If the person was distinguished in any way, the pro- 
cession halted in passing through the Forum, and one of 
the friends, ascending the rostrum, pronounced a speech 
to the people in his praise. This had hitherto never been 
done for any woman, except a few matrons of advanced 
age, and much respected ; and every one was amazed 
when Cornelia's ivory couch was set down, and her hus- 
band, ascending the rostrum, spoke an eager and mournful 
eulogy upon her merits. Remembering how, for the sake 
of this orphan daughter of Cinna, he had braved the 
wrath of Sulla, the impressible populace were greatly 
touched by the affection that insisted on paying her such 
unusual honours ; but there were others who murmured 
that Caius Caesar could never lose a chance of bringing 
himself before the people. 

A little later died Julia, his aunt, the widow of Marius. 
In Sulla's time an edict had been passed forbidding all 
honour to be done to the old demagogue, commanding 
that his bust and his image should never be shown. But 
at his wife's funeral his figure in wax appeared among 
the rest, and when Caesar arose to make the oration, while 
he boasted of that descent from the goddess-born y&teas 
which his aunt shared with him, he also dwelt upon the 
exceeding bravery and skill of Caius Marius, and his love 
of the Roman people. 

The next year he had to serve in Spain, under the pro- 
praetor, and worked so hard there, that those who had 
fancied him hitherto a mere idler thought he had been 
converted to diligence and public spirit by gazing on a 
bust of Alexander the Great at Gades ; but there is no 



364 THE BOOK OF 

reason for this belief. Pleasure and action always alter- 
nated in his life, and he never showed the love of self- 
denial for its own sake. On his return from Spain he 
married Pompeia, a cousin of Pompeius Magnus, and 
on her mother's side the grand-daughter of Sulla, and 
thus entered into an alliance with Pompey, promising to 
give him his support in resisting patrician encroachments. 

About this time Pompey was sent on a three years' mis- 
sion to put down the pirates of Cilicia, and Caesar con- 
tinued to gain steps in promotion. He was made curator 
of the principal Roman road, the Appian Way, and laid 
out sums that he could ill afford in improving and orna- 
menting it ; and when, two years later, he was elected to 
the aedileship, in company with Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, 
who was very rich, he persuaded his colleague to launch 
out into magnificence that had hitherto been never 
attempted, though Caesar's own debts were such/ that he 
confessed that he was worth 250,000,000 sesterces less 
than nothing. The aediles professed to have the care of 
public buildings, and likewise of the sports and games, 
and they thus had the opportunity of a grand display, 
such as might lead captive the fancies of the crowd. 

Porticoes were set up for the display of statues, orna- 
ments, and curiosities, and all the public buildings were 
splendidly decorated. At the feast of Cybele there were 
the grandest fights of wild beasts that had ever taken 
place, and Caesar further professed to give a great show 
of gladiators to do honour to his father's memory, dis- 
playing 320 of those unhappy slave- warriors in the arena, 
with all their weapons covered with silver. Their number 
was alarming to men who had lately had all their roads 
endangered by a rebellion of the gladiators, and an edict 
was enacted restricting their numbers. Caesar contrived 
that while Bibulus had far more than half the expense, he 
himself had the lion's share of the credit, so that poor 



WORTHIES. 365 

Bibulus said, in jest, that the aedileship was like the 
Temple of the Twins, which was equally dedicated to 
Castor and Pollux, but was always called the Temple of 
Castor. 

One morning all Rome was amazed by finding in front 
of the Capitol the statues and trophies of old Marius, 
freshly gilded, and bearing inscriptions that recalled his 
greatest services to the state. Every one knew who had 
restored them, and while the old soldiers absolutely wept 
for joy at seeing their beloved leader reinstated in his 
honours, the nobles impeached Caesar for having trans- 
gressed the law. He defended the cause of his uncle and 
himself with his usual force, and though he did not con- 
vince the Senate, they were afraid, in the temper of the 
people, to censure him or to remove the statues, and the 
commonalty were delighted. After his year of office, he 
applied to be sent to Egypt, where it was said that the 
late king Ptolemy had made a will in favour of the 
Roman people. This splendid country would have amply 
paid all his debts, and enriched him for ever, and for that 
very reason the Senate did not choose to send him thither ; 
and, moreover, the will was doubtful ; so Egypt was left in 
peace and Caesar remained at Rome, with the office of 
judge in cases of murder as the praetor's deputy. 

In this position he condemned several of the murderers 
whom Sulla had employed, and continued his advance in 
popularity, and also in debt. The year 63 was a noted 
one in Rome as that of Cicero's consulship, and of the 
detection of the mischievous conspiracy of some wicked 
young nobles, of whom the chief was Lucius Sergius 
Catilina. They intended to bring about a revolution by 
murdering the consuls and senators, and setting fire to 
the city, and the plot was only just detected in time. 
Cicero impeached Catiline before the Senate, and made 
his grandest speeches against him. The wretched man 



366 THE BOOK OF 

fled, and put himself at the head of an army ; but the 
partisans who had remained in Rome were tried before 
the Senate and sentenced to die ; but the consent of the 
people was likewise necessary, and they were in so factious 
a state that it was unadvisable to put the question to 
them. Caesar made a speech, proposing that the criminals 
should be imprisoned for life, saying that a speedy death 
was too good for them, and, besides, exceeded the powers 
of the Senate. At this Cato was furious ; he accused 
Caesar of having been in the plot : and, indeed, this was 
so much believed, that the Roman equites were ready to 
murder one whom they viewed as so treacherous and 
cautious an enemy ; but, in fact, Caesar was far too wise 
a man to engage in such a plot with such confederates. 

Full in the midst of the dispute a letter was brought to 
Csesar, and Cato, supposing it to be from one of the con- 
spirators, insisted on having it read aloud to the Senate. 
Caesar handed it over to him, and he saw in a moment 
that it was a love-letter from his own half-sister, Servilia, 
who, like many other of the Roman ladies of that shame- 
less period, paid a disgraceful court to the handsome, 
fascinating, and pleasure-loving Caesar. Not a little 
stung, Cato handed it back, with the bitter words, " Take 
it, drunkard." 

The Roman equites became so enraged that they broke 
in on the Senate, ready to massacre Caesar as a concealed 
traitor, but Cicero and other senators threw themselves 
between, and he was rescued ; while Cicero, having gained 
the consent of the greater part of the Senate, caused the 
conspirators to be executed — an act for which he had 
afterwards to suffer severely, since it overpassed the limits 
of the law, and thus was a handle for his enemies. 

It was almost the end of the year, and shortly after 
Cicero ended his consulship. Catiline was defeated and 
slain in battle. In 62 Caesar, and his faithful Pollux, 



WORTHIES. 367 

Bibulus, entered upon their praetorship. The first thing 
Caesar did was to attack Quintus Lutatius Catulus, the 
Prince of the Senate, and a man of good reputation, except 
that he had had the misfortune to be a personal friend of 
Catiline. He had been charged to superintend the re- 
building of the Temple of Jupiter in the Capitol, after a 
great fire, and Caesar accused him of having been dis- 
honest in the accounts, proposing that the honour of 
completing the work should be taken from him and 
given to Pompey. 

There was a rush of all the nobles to vote in his defence, 
and it seems likely that Caesar had only made the allega- 
tion to please the populace, who liked to see a great 
' patrician attacked, as well as to pay a compliment to 
Pompey, who was on his way home. 

It had been a campaign of wonderful success in the 
East. The Cilician pirates had been conquered, their 
ships annihilated, and themselves planted in an inland 
city, and the old King of Pontus, Mithridates, long the 
brave, cunning, and inveterate enemy of Rome, had been 
driven to extremity and suicide. Moreover, the race of 
Maccabee or Asmonean priests had, after assuming royalty, 
become degenerate and ambitious, Pompey had been called 
to settle their disputes, and, in support of the fugitive who 
had asked his protection, had taken Jerusalem by storm, 
and laid it under the Roman yoke of iron. He had even 
forced his way into the very Holy of Holies, and though 
he had done no material damage there, the pollution of 
his heathen presence was keenly felt ; and it was in truth 
a violation of the Roman rule of forbearance towards the 
religion of the vanquished. From that time it was noticed 
that the star of Pompey waned. 

However, the proposal was to recall him and send him 
to destroy Catiline and his rebel army ; but this led to a 
hot and furious discussion, in which there was so much 



368 THE BOOK OF 

violence that the Senate suspended Caesar from his office 
as praetor, and the story of his being in the plot revived. 
He went at once to Cicero, who declared that Caesar was 
perfectly innocent, and had been the first to warn him of 
the danger ; whereupon he was honourably reinstated. 

Soon after all the ladies of Rome, and the household of 
Caesar in particular, were thrown into a state of violent 
excitement. One of the greatest rites of Rome, on which 
the fruitfulness of her soil and the number of her children 
was held to depend, was the festival of Cybele, the great 
Earth-Mother, commonly called the Bona Dea, or good 
goddess. All the womankind of Rome assembled on a 
certain night of December for the purpose, at the house of 
the Pontifex Maximus, where the Vestal Virgins conducted 
the sacrifice of a pig, and other observances took place 
which were called her Mysteries. No one of the male sex 
was allowed to come near the house, for his presence would 
have profaned the rites, and was supposed to draw down 
the anger of the goddess ; indeed, such a scandal was 
unknown in the annals of Rome. 

What then was the horror of Aurelia, the dignified 
mother of Caesar, when a female slave whispered in her ear 
that there was a man among them disguised as a lady ! 
No sooner had Aurelia heard it, than, hastily covering the 
goddess's altar lest the intruder's eye should fall on it, she 
caused the doors to be shut, and taking a torch in her hand, 
examined the countenance of every matron in the angry . 
throng. The handsome face of Publius Clodius, a good- 
for-nothing young patrician whose garden-gate lay peril- 
ously near, was detected, and the ladies surrounded him in 
extreme wrath ; but there was a terrible suspicion in Au- 
relia J s heart that this was not so much an insolent frolic 
as a concerted visit to her daughter-in-law, Pompeia, and 
lest he should publicly mention that name, she dismissed 
him from the house. 



WORTHIES. 369 

The ladies went home angry and dismayed, and every 
husband in Rome heard that night that the mysteries 
had been desecrated, the rites unperformed, the goddess 
offended. The whole population were in wrath and despair, 
the Vestal Virgins publicly declared that a great expiation 
was required, and, though philosophical students like 
Cicero observed scornfully that it would have been more 
reasonable in the goddess to blind the author of the sacri- 
lege than to punish Rome, every one was eager for justice. 

Caesar himself had no reverence for the goddess, but 
as husband and master of the house he was deeply 
offended with his wife, who it seemed must have encou- 
raged Clodius before, if she were not actually aware of his 
intention. He therefore dissolved the marriage, and re- 
turned her and her dowry to her family ; but he did not 
choose to prosecute Clodius, as he was a member of the 
same party and a favourite of the mob, whom Caesar 
never chose to offend. 

However, it was an affair of all Rome, and Cicero, Cato, 
and other senators brought it about that Clodius should 
be tried ; but his friends did not scruple to use monstrous 
arts of bribery upon a sort of jury chosen by lot, and he 
swore himself that he was absent from Rome on the night 
in question. Aurelia indeed bore the most positive testi- 
mony against him, and so did the slaves, whose truth was 
thought to be confirmed by torture ; but Caesar himself 
continued to declare he knew nothing about it, and, when 
he was asked why then he had divorced Pompeia, said, 
11 Because Caesar's wife must be above suspicion." After 
all, the prosecution failed, and the reckless intruder escaped 
chastisement. 

So soon as the year of praetorship was over, before the 
arrival of Pompey, Caesar went forth to take the propraetor- 
ship in the more distant half of Spain. The rich silver 
mines of Iberia were to serve as the means of acquitting 

B B 



370 THE BOOK OF 

his debts ; and what they must have been, in spite of 
Bibulus, is incalculable ; and he had to borrow still more 
largely in order to fit himself out for his office, and to raise 
the ten cohorts of soldiers which he added to the twenty 
he already expected to find there. 

He did not get his instructions till April, 61, and then 
he made all speed to his province by land, taking with 
him a young African prince named Masintha, whom he 
had befriended in defiance of the Senate. In a rude cot- 
tage on the Alps, where he was halting, some of his officers 
asked him whether he expected to be as much beset with 
the entreaties of clients as at home, and his reply was re- 
membered, " I had rather be first among these barbarians 
than second at Rome." 

His province was the western one, the more untamed of 
the two, where fierce tribes lived in the mountains and 
tormented the sunny provinces of the Mediterranean 
coast, where all the luxury of Phoenicians, Greeks, and 
Romans had been flourishing ever since the days of 
Scipio. Far and deep into the mountains then did Csesar 
hunt these independent tribes, pursuing them to the river 
Douro, which he crossed on rafts ; and then sending to 
Cadiz for ships, he sailed to what was probably Corunna, 
and thus pacified the country. Moreover, finding that 
those terrible usurers, the Roman publicans or collectors 
of the tribute, had contrived to get all the natives in the 
subject provinces into such complications of debt that 
despair often led to flight, revolt, and war, he set his clear 
brain and persuasive manner to put matters on a better 
footing, so that he won great gratitude and popularity ; 
and without gaining any character for rapacity, he con- 
trived to collect an immense quantity of treasure, quite 
enough to pay his debts and to carry him through the 
election to the consulate for the year after his return. 

He considered himself to have quite earned a triumph ; 



WORTHIES. 371 

and it would have been granted to him, but that he came 
back so late in the year that, as it was not permitted to a 
commander to come within the walls before his triumphal 
entry, he must have given up his canvass for the consul- 
ship if he had persisted in his demand. Therefore he laid 
aside the insignia of a general, and was soon in Rome, 
prevailing fast against the strong opposition of Cato and 
his friends. 

Bibulus was again his colleague, but had now decidedly 
turned against him, and Caesar entered into a union with 
Pompey and Lucius Licinius Crassus, surnamed Dives, or 
u the rich." Their object was to form a league to gain each 
their own ends. Pompey was offended by the Senate's 
having appeared desirous of making him render an account 
of his campaigns in Asia, and further desired the province 
of Spain ; Crassus wanted the government of Asia ; and 
Caesar's aims reached far beyond what the other two 
understood. To draw the alliance closer Caesar gave his 
own daughter Julia to Pompey, who offered him a daughter 
in return ; but instead of her he married Calpurnia, the 
daughter of Lucius Calpurnius Piso. He looked forward 
to another field of greater glory for the end of his consul- 
ship, for he had been promised the proconsulate of Gaul, 
the interior of which was still unsubdued ; but the jealousy 
of the Senate interfered, and threatened him instead with 
the mere supervision of the roads and forests. 

He was resolved to secure the vote of the populace, and 
to obtain their goodwill he proposed a division of the 
state lands, one of those measures that the people loved 
and the patricians hated. The soldiers of Pompey would 
profit by it as well as his own, and the support of this 
powerful ally was thus secured ; and no one durst speak 
against it but Cato, who protested against all change. 

This Caesar declared was illegal, and he bade his lictors 
seize Cato and take him to prison. This was an outrage 
B B 2 



372 THE BOOK OF 

upon his dignity ; many of the senators followed him to 
prison, one of them declaring that chains with Cato were 
better than freedom with Caesar. 

It was plain that Caesar had made a false step, and he 
at once set Cato free, and dismissed the Senate for the 
day, adding, as he did so, that he had consulted them before 
the people that they might make any modification in the 
act that they chose, but that, since they set their faces 
against it altogether, he should appeal to the people. 

When the people assembled in the Forum, he said that 
the law which would make the fortunes of so many would 
be passed in an instant, could they but gain the consent of 
his colleague ; but Bibulus, who had long grown weary 
of playing the part of Pollux, cried out, " Never during my 
year, though you should cry for it with one voice." 

Then Caesar consulted Pompey and Crassus, asking 
them whether they would support the act if it were opposed 
with violence. " Should any one draw his sword against 
it," said Pompey, " I would take my shield," thus implying 
that he would come armed to the Forum as if for battle. 
Sure of his support, Caesar then ventured to defy the 
Senate by convoking the people in spite of Bibulus, who 
declared that he had observed Jupiter darting thunder, 
which was by the law a token that no business could be 
transacted. The Roman people were so much afraid that 
the Senate would hinder the assembly, or choke the Forum 
with their adherents, that they had taken up their station 
there long before dawn. 

Both consuls appeared on the steps of the Temple of 
Castor and Pollux; but when Bibulus tried to speak against 
the act, his voice was drowned in clamour, he was pulled 
down the steps, his lictors bruised and wounded and their 
rods broken. Cato forced his way to the rostrum and tried 
to speak, but no one would hear him, and he was dragged 
down. The law was passed by the vote of the people, and 



WORTHIES. 373 

the Senate felt that they could not but ratify it, though 
Cato refused to swear obedience to it ; and Bibulus never 
left his own house during the remainder of his term of 
office, but remained shut up there, only sending his officers 
to protest that he was observing the skies and taking 
omens, whenever any public affairs were transacted, by 
which means he hoped to render all his colleague's 
measures invalid and capable of being reversed. 

So entirely was the power left to Caesar that it was a 
jest among the Romans, that this was the consulship of 
Caius and Julius, and the superstition of the people con- 
nected his success with his possession of a wonderful horse, 
which had been bred in his own stables and had hoofs 
divided like the feet of a digitated animal, whence the 
augurs had predicted that its master would grasp the 
world. Like Bucephalus, it had been untameable till it felt 
the hand of a true " king of men " on it, and it allowed no 
one to mount it but Caesar, who afterwards erected a statue 
of it in front of the Temple of Venus, his ancestress. 

He used his power to enact a great many excellent rules, 
which were known as the Julian laws, and his ability and 
beneficence made themselves so much felt that his influ- 
ence was unbounded, and he supported it by measures 
both worthy and unworthy. The villain Clodius being 
pledged to his party, he gave him every possible assistance 
in obtaining his election to the tribunate, which the wretch 
only wanted for the sake of being able to revenge himself 
on Cicero, by prosecuting him for the illegal execution of 
the companions of Catiline. 

No sooner had the ist of January, 58, passed, than 
Caesar laid down the fasces of consul, and assumed those 
of proconsul of Gaul ; after which, being a military com- 
mander, he could not come within the gates for the ten years 
of his command; but while he was still close outside, Clodius 
showed his malice by proposing severe penalties against 



374 THE BOOK OF 

any one who had condemned a Roman citizen unheard. 
In hopes of obtaining Caesar's assent, Clodius made the 
people meet outside the walls that he might give his vote ; 
but Caesar only said that he had shown his opinion at the 
time, and that he disapproved of laws that looked backward 
and imposed penalties on deeds previous to their enact- 
ment. One element of greatness in Caesar was, that he 
was much freer from petty personal enmity than any other 
man of his day : he really admired and respected Cicero, 
though they were always opposed to each other ; and he 
offered to make the orator his lieutenant, so as to withdraw 
him honourably from Rome till Clodius should be out of 
office ; but Cicero, who was never happy for a moment 
out of Italy, and thought himself able to resist his enemy, 
refused the offer, and had reason to repent it, for Clodius 
so far prevailed that he had to leave his beloved city as a 
fugitive, instead of as an officer on honourable service. 

The other two triumvirs had obtained their desire : 
Crassus was proconsul of Asia, and Pompey of the enor- 
mous province including both Spain and Africa. Crassus 
left Rome, and shortly after perished in an expedition 
against the Parthians, while Pompey lingered in Italy, 
governing his province by his lieutenants, and trying to 
rule Rome by the influence he possessed over the senators, 
who clung to him as their only safeguard from Caesar, the 
dangerous and dissipated adventurer whom they feared 
as likely to bring back the worst times of his favourite 
Marius. 

Caesar was one of those men who cannot undertake a 
service of any sort without so dealing with it as to make it 
grand and important, and he already knew that the pro- 
vince of Gaul offered such a field for distinguishing him- 
self, and training up a devoted army, as did no other since 
the subjection of Mithridates. The southern portion of 
Gaul, called Provincia, or " the province," was indeed full 



WORTHIES. 375 

of Roman colonies, and had been civilized up to the Italian 
pitch ; and further north, the tribe of ^Edui were the head 
of a confederation of clans, were in close alliance with 
Rome, and had learnt a good deal of civilization through 
the trade which their mineral wealth brought into their 
mountains ; but all beyond was an untried wilderness of 
fierce Kelts, chiefly known by their occasional forays upon 
the more cultivated regions. Of late the chief of the 
^Eduan clan, whom the Romans called Divitiacus, had 
arrived at Rome, and, standing before the Senate, had 
made an harangue which, when interpreted, explained that 
a great German tribe and a king called Ariovistus had 
come across the Rhine, at the invitation of the Sequani, 
or dwellers on the Saone, and that the ^Edui had been 
terrified into giving up their supremacy and making com- 
mon cause against the Romans, but that he himself had not 
consented to break the league, and had fled from his country 
to lay the cause of his clan before their noble allies. Aid 
had been promised, but there was the delay occasioned by 
Caesar's waiting to finish his year of the consulate, and then 
again by his waiting to collect troops, appoint officers, and 
make arrangements, while he entertained Divitiacus with 
great hospitality, and had much friendly intercourse with 
him, although neither could speak the language of the other. 

Suddenly, however, there arrived tidings that another 
dreadful host of invaders, Helvetii by name, the wild 
Kelts of the Alps, were descending from their mountains, 
not for a temporary inroad, but bringing waggon-loads of 
their wives and children, intending to effect a permanent 
settlement in Gaul, and they would certainly fall on the 
cultivated lands of the allies of the Romans. They were 
actually on their way, intending to cross the Rhone at the 
bridge of Geneva. 

From the moment of that intelligence till the work was 
done Caesar ceased to be the ambitious Roman statesman, 



376 THE BOOK OF 

but became entirely the proconsul and general. He 
started instantly for the scene of action, aware that a 
nation with all their possessions must be slow in progress 
among wild mountains, while he, with only a few officers, 
relays of horses every few miles, and Roman roads all the 
way, could move with great speed ; and, accordingly, in 
eight days' time he was at Geneva, ordering the bridge to 
be broken down, and leaving only a rushing torrent, too 
swift and wide for rafts or swimmers, between him and 
the Helvetii. 

They were near at hand, and at once sent an embassy 
to Caesar to entreat permission to cross the river, explain- 
ing that they had no designs against the province, but 
only wanted to make war upon the wild Kelts of the West 
This was on the 28th of March, and Csesar bade them 
return for an answer in a fortnight's time. He had found 
one legion in the province, and instantly set all the men 
to work to throw a rampart and ditch along the whole 
fifteen miles of the bank of the river from the point of the 
lake to the gorge of the Jura, and having thus strength- 
ened the defences, he answered the Helvetian demand 
that no such thing had ever been granted by the Romans. 

They made some attempts to force the passage, but, 
encumbered as they were, found it utterly impossible ; so 
they gave up the attempt, and, turning to the north, 
obtained from Dumnorix, the brother of Divitiacus, per- 
mission to descend into Gaul through the ^Eduan lands. 

The one legion under Caesar's command was, of course, 
as nothing against a whole horde of barbarians ; and, 
therefore, whilst the enemy were making their tardy way 
towards the north, he left his officer Labienus to guard 
the rampart of the Rhone whilst he himself dashed off 
into Northern Italy, or Cisalpine Gaul, which formed 
part of his government ; and there he raised two legions, 
and summoned three more from their station, so that he 



WORTHIES. 377 

brought back 30,000 men, through the shortest but most 
dangerous way, by the Cottian Alps, where he had to be 
on his guard against the natives. He hoped to be in 
time to prevent the Helvetians from passing the Saone, 
but he only came up when the greater number were 
across, and only a quarter part of them still remained on 
the further side. Upon these he fell, and cut them to 
pieces ; then setting his soldiers to build a bridge, he 
carried his army across in a single day in pursuit of 
the rest. 

Dismayed at his swiftness, they again attempted to treat 
with him, and sent an old chief, who boasted of what the 
Gauls had once done to the Romans ; but Caesar said 
that he was come to revenge the wrongs of his country- 
men and allies, and the only terms which he would offer 
were those of instant retreat from Gaul, and compensa- 
tion for the havoc they were making there. 

The ^Eduans did not deserve the protection he was 
affording them, for they had first allowed the Helvetians 
to enter, and though they were now apparently fighting in 
Caesar's army, they always took flight at every skirmish 
with the Helvetians, and took no pains to supply him 
with provisions. At last he found that the real traitor 
was Dumnorix, the brother of Divitiacus, and he caused 
him to be put down from his authority. Indeed, it was 
only the earnest intercession of Divitiacus that saved his 
brother's life. 

Near Bibracte, the ^Eduan capital, a great battle was 
fought, which broke the whole force of the Helvetians, 
and forced them to sue for whatever terms Caesar chose to 
grant. It was regarded as an act of mercy that he neither 
butchered them nor sold them as slaves, but merely sent 
them back to their old mountains, causing them to be 
supplied with provisions till they had had time to rebuild 
their huts and grow fresh corn. 



378 THE BOOK OF 

This great achievement over, Caesar had to deal with 
the Germans and Ariovistus, their proud chief, who almost 
anticipated the destiny of his people when he declared 
himself to be a conqueror like the Romans. " Let them 
keep to their province," he said, " and I will keep to mine." 
Moreover, another flood of Germans was preparing to 
follow him across the Rhine, and Caesar felt that the 
battle must be fought before their junction. So he 
marched on in great haste as far as Besancon, but there 
found his army in great alarm and unwilling to advance. 
The young noblemen who had come to serve under him 
were disgusted with the hardships of Gaul ; and, besides, 
the Gauls told horrible stories of the ferocity and strength 
of the Germans, so that many were begging for leave of 
absence, and those who were steady enough to remain 
and face the worst were all making their wills and giving 
themselves up for lost. 

Caesar had to argue with officers and men in private, 
and in public he made them an address, shaming the 
panic-stricken by declaring that he knew he could trust 
the brave Tenth Legion, and that he had such confidence 
in his own destiny, that if all the others should fall away 
he would advance with them alone and feel secure of 
victory. His power of infusing courage was soon evi- 
dent : there were no more murmurs, and he marched on 
to hold a conference in person with Ariovistus, upon 
a solitary hill rising from a plain where both armies 
were watching. 

It was of no effect, and was broken up. The Germans 
remained still for some days, and Caesar discovered that 
the cause of the delay was their expectation that the new 
moon would bring them luck. He therefore forestalled 
the moon, and by attacks on their camp forced them to 
come out in battle array, when he utterly defeated them, 
so that the whole host fled headlong to the Rhine ; and 



WORTHIES, 379 

there was a terrible slaughter along the whole bank, 
Ariovistus himself only just escaping in a boat. 

This victory had brought the country as far north as 
the Saone under friendly subjection to Rome, and Caesar 
went as a victor back to Cisalpine Gaul for the winter ; 
but with the spring of 57 fresh cares awaited him, for the 
Belgic tribes, who inhabited the marshy country to the 
west, had formed a great confederacy against him. A 
tremendous battle was fought on the banks of the Sambre, 
in which their bravest tribe was nearly exterminated, 
their chief stronghold was taken, and then, after another 
winter spent beyond the Alps, he brought sailors from 
the Mediterranean, and built ships wherewith to hunt 
down and subdue the stout-hearted Gauls of Armorica ; 
so that by the end of B.C. 56 there was no people in the 
accessible portions of Gaul who had not been brought 
into subjection. But there were still dangers on the fron- 
tier, and tokens of an unbroken spirit among the Kelts 
themselves, which kept the proconsul fully occupied, and 
which he describes in his " Commentaries." These consist 
of the whole history of his Gallic war, minutely described 
by himself ; with the full account of his tactics, and of 
the motives of his marches and treaties ; with praise to 
his brave soldiers, and esteem for the skill and valour ot 
his enemies ; but with all the indifference to real justice 
that might be expected from a Roman, and, with all his 
clearness of head, no perception that anything in the 
character of a barbarian Gaul could be interesting, save 
as it called out the powers of a Roman, and chiefly of 
Caius Julius Caesar. It is, however, one of the best 
written and most valuable histories in existence. 

When warfare could no longer be carried on, he always 
repaired to his Gallic province on the Italian side of the 
Alps, where he resided at Lucca, and thence kept up his 
influence over Rome, though as a general he could not 



380 THE BOOK OF 

enter it. Hosts of senators flocked to see and consult 
him, or pay their court to him, and for each of his victories 
he received the thanks of the Senate : and in the mean- 
time he won over all hearts by his high-bred courtesy, 
such as appeared in trifles. It was told of him, that when 
at a banquet some asparagus was served up with sweet 
ointment instead of oil, he ate it without apparent disgust, 
and when his officers exclaimed, he rebuked them : "It 
is enough," he said, " not to eat what you dislike, but he 
who reflects upon another's want of breeding shows that 
he has it not himself." When forced by a storm on a 
journey to spend the night at a hovel by the road-side, he 
put the feeblest of the party into the one room, and 
himself lay outside under a shed. 

During his winter absence the Teutons came over the 
Belgian border again, and the early part of 55 was spent 
in driving them back ; but Caesar's curiosity had been 
excited by certain allies of the Armoricans, who were said 
to have come from an island beyond the waters that 
washed the coast of Gaul, and whose cliffs could dimly 
be seen from the Belgian heights. This was the Ultima 
Thule, the land of Frost and Fog, over which the Tyrian 
merchants had always thrown a veil of mystery, into which 
Caesar was determined to penetrate, having already a 
notion that the natives were not very unlike the Gauls, 
with whom he had grown familiar in five years of alliance 
or of warfare : at any rate, the Gauls must not believe 
that there was any place whither the Romans could not 
advance, nor, what was even more important, must Rome 
suppose there was anything too hard for Caesar. 

So he embarked a legion and crossed the strait, to find 
the heights crowded with Britons, who followed his course 
along the beach, and bravely resisted his landing, so that 
the shore would scarcely have been gained but for the ad- 
venturous bravery of the standard-bearer, who leapt down 



WORTHIES. 381 

among the natives, and thus forced his comrades to follow 
him, or disgrace themselves by the loss of their eagle. 

A few days spent on the coast surrounded by hostile 
natives comprised the whole of this expedition ; but it 
had really been for the purpose of reconnoitring, and the 
next year he set out once more, with three legions and 
4,000 Gallic horse, landed, and fought his way as far as 
the Thames. Caswallon, the British chief in command, 
resisted bravely, but without avail ; the Romans found a 
ford, crossed the Thames, and stormed the great enclosure 
of trunks of trees where the Britons had placed their 
families and cattle. Nothing was left for Caswallon to 
do but to acknowledge Roman supremacy, like his neigh- 
bours in Gaul, and give up some young chiefs as hostages 
for his submission, but really as visible proofs to the 
Romans that Caesar had conquered in a land that was 
almost deemed fabulous. He also brought away a breast- 
plate set with pearls from the river mussels of Britain. 

On his return to Gaul he found all in confusion again, 
the Belgians up in arms, and Quintus Cicero, the brother 
of the great Marcus, in desperate danger, besieged with a 
single legion in his camp by a huge horde of savages. 
Caesars advance saved him, and the revolt was punished 
by the desolation of the country. It was at a critical 
moment in the march that Caesar received tidings from 
Pompey of the death of Julia, his only child ; and the 
manner in which he kept his grief from interfering with 
his efficiency was much admired by those around him. 

The most notable effort of the Gauls to shake off the 
yoke that he was welding on their necks was made in 52, 
under the gallant young Arvernian chieftain whom Caesar 
calls Vercingetorix, and who did all that sagacity and 
skill could do with a shifting, unmanageable, uncertain 
race, against one of the greatest geniuses in the world, 
with a perfectly disciplined army. 



382 THE BOOK OF 

So formidable was the rising of Vercingetorix that 
Caesar was forced to hurry back headlong from Italy, 
and to march into Auvergne over snow six feet deep, 
In spite of his rapidity, and of the burning and devasta- 
tion with which he tried to strike terror into the Gauls, 
Caesar had never been so hardly pressed, and in a battle 
on the borders of Provincia his sword was wrested from 
him to be suspended as a trophy in a temple of the 
Arverni. However, he succeeded in forcing the brave 
Gaul to shut himself up in a vast intrenched camp, at 
Alesia, where Caesar blockaded him, and as the other 
Gauls outside had not constancy enough to bear re- 
verses, no aid came, and the gallant chief gave himself 
up, for the safety of his people. 

Caesar sat cold, grave, unmoved, in his curule chair at 
the head of his troops, while the noble Kelt came forth 
on a beautiful horse, galloped round, wheeled about 
Caesar's chair, then suddenly drawing his rein, leapt off 
and laid his arms and himself before the victor. Xo 
voice of mercy was spoken ; only Vercingetorix was 
ordered to be guarded as a captive to honour the 
intended triumph. 

That triumph was yet a long way off. Two years had 
still to be spent in taming the outlying tribes, and in so 
ordering Gaul that the old clan organization might be 
broken up and revolt become more difficult ; and in this 
Caesar's consummate ability showed itself. He never 
was severe without a reason for it, and knew how to 
make his favour and mercy thoroughly conciliating, and 
the ten years of his proconsulship secured a whole 
country to Rome, and gave her, instead of hordes of 
barbarous enemies, legions of intelligent and active 
soldiers. 

But he was longing to assert his power in the arena 
where he now hoped to be first. Crassus had been killed 



WORTHIES. 383 

in the East, and the Roman minds were divided between 
Caesar and Pompey ; moreover, the death of Julia had 
broken the tie that held her father and her husband 
together, and Pompey was manifesting a good deal of 
jealousy and dislike to Caesar, and a desire to keep him 
as long as possible at a distance. 

But this could no longer be done. Caesar was actually 
in Italy, and though still not at Rome, was among Roman 
citizens, among whom he went about in the scarlet cloak 
of a general, attended by lictors with their fasces wreathed 
with laurel. Every city he passed through received him 
with rapture ; the gates were clothed with boughs, victims 
were sacrificed, and men feasted in the market-place. He 
had almost as a right demanded the consulship of the 
year, without having as before to give up his triumph to 
come and ask for it. 

Pompey, and with him all the conservative Romans, 
wanted to appoint a new proconsul, and thus deprive 
Caesar of his army ; but two of the tribunes, Marcus 
Antonius (more commonly known to us as Mark Antony) 
and Ouintus Cassius, upheld Caesars interests. In right 
of the government of the provinces of Spain and Africa, 
Pompey too had an army at his disposal as proconsul, and 
the Senate was justly afraid that the two rivals, each at 
the head of their legions, would soon come to civil war. 
Some declared that the only safety of the republic lay in 
trusting to Pompey, others that Caesar was its only hope. 
If " Caesar remained in the north of Italy with his army, 
surely Pompey could not be spared with his force to 
counterbalance him," said one party, while others de- 
clared that the only condition on which Caesar could be 
required to lay down his arms was that Pompey should 
be sent off to his province with all his troops. At last 
things came to a crisis. The Senate met outside the 
walls of Rome, that Pompey might be present, and agreed 



384 THE BOOK OF 

to deprive Caesar of his command, appoint a fresh pro- 
consul of Gaul, and trust to Pompey to bear them through 
with the consequences ! 

The tribunes protested, but were silenced. They de- 
clared that they were under coercion, and that the voice 
of the law was silenced by terror; and they fled as if 
for their lives to Caesar's camp of one single legion, at 
Ravenna, sending beforehand to call on him to save the 
republic. Now was the turning-point ! It was on the 15th 
of January, 49, that Caesar set out from Ravenna by a 
branch of the great road called the ^Emilian Way, which 
led to the boundary between his own province of Cis- 
alpine Gaul, where he still had the right to bear arms as 
proconsul, and the home lands of the Roman republic, on 
which it was not lawful for a home-coming army to enter, 
save by the special leave and invitation of the Senate. 

This boundary was washed by a little stream, called 
the Rubicon, from the ruddy hue of the waters of the 
peat-mosses whence it springs. It was a flood in the 
winter, and was spanned by a bridge, and the crossing 
of this bridge as an armed man, leading his troops, was, 
as Caesar well knew, the turning-point of his life. 

He sent forward some of his troops in the morning, but 
himself remained at Ravenna, where he was present at 
some public ceremony, and afterwards entertained some 
friends at dinner, only quitting them at sunset, as if to 
return presently, but really mounting a car drawn by 
mules, and driving along by-roads to overtake his 
troops. The way was lost, it was quite dark, all the 
torches of his attendants went out, and it was with 
much difficulty that he found the troops he had sent 
forward. The next morning he did what has become a 
proverb for taking an irrevocable step in life — he crossed 
the Rubicon ; thus becoming a rebel against the formal 
decree of the Senate. 



WORTHIES, 385 

He never mentions the actual crossing in his own 
Commentaries, but other historians have been so struck 
with the importance of the event, as to dress it up in 
graceful legend. Caesar, it is said, stood hesitating. 
u Even now," he said, " we may return ! If we cross 
the bridge, arms must decide our strife!" 

Just then a beautiful youth appeared playing on a flute, 
so sweetly, that the soldiers and the shepherds who 
chanced to be in the camp gathered round him, until 
he suddenly snatched a trumpet, blew a wild and spirit- 
stirring blast, leapt into the river and crossed it ; then 
was seen no more. 

" Onwards ! " cried Caesar, " where the gods point the 
way, and our foes invite us. The die is cast." 

It was still early in the day when Ariminium was 
reached and secured, and there Antony and the other 
fugitive tribune were met. Caesar waited there to col- 
lect the rest of his legions, eleven in number, and then 
marched on, to the horror and dismay of the Senate and 
consuls, who fancied that a reign of terror was coming, 
and fled in a body, without waiting to secure either the 
public treasure or their own property, but hurried south- 
wards, sending out a summons to the faithful to rally for 
the defence of the Republic. On, however, came Caesar, 
gathering strength at every step, and carefully making 
known that he was not coming as a cruel avenger like 
Sulla, but merely to assert his rights as a Roman 
citizen, slaying no one, and touching no man's property. 
All Italy grew enraged against those who had left them 
to their fate, and were retreating further and further to 
the southern extremity. In sixty days after he had 
passed the Rubicon, Caesar had followed them down the 
whole length of Italy, even to Brundusium, and there 
finding the place not fit for defence, the consul, Cornelius 
Scipio, whose daughter Cornelia Pompey had married, 

c c 



386 THE BOOK OF 

took ship for Greece, and Pompey followed them in a 
few days, so that Csesar was truly, as one of his lieu- 
tenants called him, master of Italy. 

Cato, who was then governing Sicily, yielded it upon 
his summons, and joined the consuls. Cicero, who was 
living in retirement at his villa at Formiae, was there 
visited by Caesar, who did all he could to win him over 
to his side ; but Cicero was staunch to his principles, and 
said, if he came to Rome at all, it must be to oppose 
Caesar's measures, and the interview ended with cold 
politeness. 

Caesar went to Rome and convoked the Senate, making 
his two friends the tribunes preside in the absence of the 
consuls. All who were strongly opposed to him had fled 
or stayed away, and the rest were greatly won over by his 
unexpected clemency, as well as alienated from Pompey 
and the other party by their abandonment of their post ; 
and there was no one to oppose him when he seized the 
treasures that had been left behind, collected his legions, 
and prepared to destroy Pompey's army in Greece, where 
he was believed to be collecting a mass of barbarians 
with whom to return and revenge himself upon the 
Romans. 

Caesar marched by the coast road, and had a great 
battle at Ilerda with two of Pompey's lieutenants ; an 
exceedingly well-contested and terrible battle it was, 
but the day was with Caesar, and the defeat, together 
with want of provisions, forced the Pompeian army to 
lay down their arms. The victory was thought so im- 
portant, that the anniversary was kept as a festival. 
After completing the subjection of Spain, he returned in 
time to receive the submission of Marseilles, which had 
been holding out for Pompey, and had been besieged 
for some months past; and he himself was appointed 
Dictator by his own party at Rome ; and this gave him an 



WORTHIES. 387 

unquestioned right to enter the city with his army, and 
to appear in the Forum. 

The real nobleness of Caesar was seen in the for- 
bearance and placability which made his power so much 
less terrible to the vanquished than they expected. There 
were no proscriptions, no murders; but there were dis- 
tributions of corn to make up for the withdrawal of the 
supply from Africa, which was Pompey's province, and the 
right of citizenship was extended to the Cisalpine province 
of Gaul. Still, however, Pompey and the senators who had 
fled with him were in full force at Thessalonica, and were 
gathering round them the petty princes of Asia Minor 
and Syria, who had become attached to Pompey during 
his Eastern wars, and were ready to fight in his cause, 
bringing large contingents with them, whom Pompey 
trained in the Roman manner of fighting. 

It was high time to pursue them thither, when Caesar 
with seven legions embarked at Brundusium in the 
autumn of 48, so suddenly, that his old colleague Bibulus, 
who was on the watch for him at Corfu, was entirely 
eluded, and he safely landed in Epirus. Still, however, 
he was delayed ; for his legions were not complete in 
number, and the watch Bibulus kept deterred the rest of 
his troops from crossing. At last the waiting became so 
intolerable that he returned in person, Plutarch says, in 
the disguise of a slave, in a little twelve-oared vessel, in 
the face of a storm, to expedite matters. The tempest 
became violent, and the master of the vessel w r as terrified ; 
but the unknown passenger rose up out of the bottom 
of the ship and consoled him with the confident words, 
" Fear not ! You carry Caesar and his fortunes ! >y 

At last the rest of the army joined him, and he marched 

towards Dyrrachium, where Pompey lay with his army. 

Every one expected a battle, but it was long deferred, for 

Pompey was resolved not to fight till he had thoroughly 

C C 2 



388 THE BOOK OF 

trained his men. He therefore gave way before Caesar, 
and let him form the siege of Dyrrachium, while he him- 
self took up a position around a overhanging cliff called 
Petra, entrenching himself behind a rampart fifteen miles 
long, which enclosed a great quantity of cultivated 
ground. Caesar in return cut him off from the place he 
had come to relieve and secured himself by a rampart 
seventeen miles long. And behind these earthworks the 
two greatest captains and finest armies then in existence 
lay watching one another, neither venturing on a move 
that would expose him to the other, and each hoping to 
weary the other out and take advantage of some un- 
guarded movement. They had many skirmishes, but no 
battle ; for though Caesar's army was the superior in the 
proportion of genuine Roman legionaries, Pompey's was 
the most numerous and had many more light horse. 
However, famine was severely felt in the Caesarean army; 
in the winter no bread could be obtained, and the soldiers 
were forced to dig up a kind of root which they boiled in 
milk, or bruised into flour and made loaves of. By way 
of defiance they threw these loaves into Pompey's camp, 
telling his outposts, " that as long as they had such fare, 
their siege should last ;" and they, being higher up on the 
hills, were able to distress their enemies with thirst by 
stopping all the watercourses, so that the Pompeians were 
forced to sink wells in the sands on the sea-shore. In 
the daily skirmishes that took place, Caesar's well-armed 
troops had the advantage, and on reckoning the numbers 
of the slain after several weeks of them it was found that 
they had only lost twenty men, while they had counted 
two thousand Pompeians slain. 

At last, however, an attack was made upon a part of 
Caesar's lines which were not yet completed, and where 
the men were at work without their arms ; they and those 
nearest were put to flight, and were thus met by Caesar, 



WORTHIES. 389 

who, catching at one of the men to stop him, was struck 
at by the man in his panic, and was only saved by an 
attendant. He found it impossible to rally the men, and 
was forced to content himself with throwing up another 
rampart close to his camp, where he expected an im- 
mediate attack ; and when the evening passed without it 
he said, " The victory would have been with our enemies 
if they had had a general who knew how to conquer ;" and 
the night that ensued is said to have been the most 
anxious and melancholy of his life, for his position had 
become untenable, and he must retreat with the full ex- 
pectation of being attacked at great disadvantage. Mean- 
time there was the greatest exultation in the other camp 
from all but Cato, who, with the heart of a citizen, 
covered his face and burst into tears at the sight of the 
bodies of the thousand Roman citizens who had been 
killed. When he found that Pompey, still insecure of the 
quality of his troops, had decided against fighting, he 
thanked him ardently for thus saving bloodshed, while all 
the other captains murmured. 

Caesar then retreated, keeping a good guard, but un- 
molested, to Apollonia, where he found shelter for the 
many sick who had suffered from scanty fare, and finally 
took up his position near the town of Pharsalus, whither 
Pompey pursued him, with the senators, who had become 
so confident of victory, that they had sent to take houses 
at Rome fit for the state offices they expected soon to be 
bearing. Pompey himself was, however, much out of 
spirits, though their insistance forced him to fight — he 
being no doubt far better able than they to estimate the 
odds against them ; and. on the other hand, Caesar was 
almost equally depressed at the prospect of a hand-to- 
hand conflict with the flower of Rome, saying that, be the 
issue what it might, it could not fail to produce many 
evils. 



390 THE BOOK OF 

All the omens were, however, in his favour, and he was 
one of those men who with little religious belief have 
a great confidence in such tokens of fortune. As he 
rode along the ranks, just before the battle joined, and 
called out to one of his centurions, " What cheer, Caius 
Crastinus?" the hearty answer came back, "We shall 
conquer nobly, Caesar ! This day will I deserve your 
praise, alive or dead." He was the first to rush upon the 
foe, one of the first to fall, and Caesar took care that his 
corpse should receive distinguished honours. 

The legionaries were pretty equally matched, and fought 
foot to foot ; and Pompey put no faith in his Eastern 
allies, but kept them in the rear, where they did nothing 
but cramp and encumber his army. He relied more on 
his cavalry, a splendid band of brave young patricians, 
who he hoped would by a tremendous charge ride down 
the legionaries. But the staunch old soldiers held their 
solid ranks, and the order " Strike at their faces ! " passed 
along ; the stunning blow or thrust of the short sword 
laid many a gay youth low ; and as the others fell back, 
they perhaps hardly deserved the sneer that they feared 
for their beauty. They broke and fled to the hills, and 
Caesar's reserve marched up against the legionaries, who 
had been fighting all this time, and were prepared to sell 
their lives dearly and die where they stood. But their 
opponents, instead of striking, told them that Caesar did 
not wish to kill Romans, only to be rid of that useless 
mass of barbarians in their rear ; so the Pompeians, with- 
out any pity for their unfortunate allies, let them pass 
and make a dreadful slaughter of the poor wretches who 
had been brought from their homes by their lords' trust 
in Pompey. 

That unhappy man had fled into his camp, and, after 
arranging to defend it, had shut himself up in his tent ; but 
presently tidings were brought him that the enemy were 



WORTHIES. 391 

thundering at the gates: " What ! into my camp too ?" he 
said ; and, hastily taking off his scarlet mantle and other 
insignia of a general, he mounted his horse, and galloped 
away through the gate in the rear, while Caesar and his 
men poured into the camp, where they found tables spread 
and tents decked with ivy for a victorious feast. Caesar 
was a good deal touched at the ruin he had made. "They 
would have it so," he said. " Caius Caesar must have lost 
all and suffered death, had he not thrown himself on the 
protection of his soldiers." He would not let his troops 
enjoy the spoil till they had broken up all the remaining 
parties of the enemy, who had fled to the hills, and 
received the submission of those who saw that resistance 
had become hopeless, and that the Republic lay at his 
mercy. 

Of these were Caius Cassius Longinus, an able officer, 
and Marcus Junius Brutus, one of the intensest devotees 
of the old iron age of the Commonwealth, and nephew 
aid son-in-law to Cato. Cato himself, with Cicero and 
o hers of the purest-minded of the senators, drew together 
in the island of Corfu, and waited, expecting to join 
Pompey in the great African province round Carthage, 
wlere he had two legions, and all the native princes were 
friendly to him. Instead of this, however, Pompey had, 
with his wife Cornelia and one of his sons, sailed for 
Eg^pt, where, in the days of his greatness he had been 
appointed guardian of the young brother and sister 
kin^ and queen, Ptolemy XII. and Cleopatra. He came 
in tie midst of a civil war between them, and almost at 
the noment of his landing on the shore held by Ptolemy 
he w.s stabbed by order of the treacherous young king, 
his h*ad was cut off, and his body left to the waves. It 
was Cist ashore, and a faithful servant and an old Roman 
soldier making a pile with wood from an old fishing-boat, 
burnt i»and placed the ashes in an urn. 



392 THE BOOK OF 

Caesar did not learn what had happened till he arrived 
on the coast of Egypt in pursuit, with 3,200 infantry and 
800 cavalry, and one of the Egyptian courtiers came out 
in a boat to meet him, bringing him the signet-ring and 
the head of his rival. It was no small shock to Caesar to 
find that the man whom he had wished to overcome in 
honourable conflict, who had once been his friend, and 
the husband of his beloved daughter, had been so 
miserably destroyed by these base barbarians ; and he 
turned away in horror and with tears in his eyes from 
the head, commanding that it should be consumed with 
sweet odours. 

Caesar was in pressing need of money, and therefore as 
consul demanded from young Ptolemy the sum — or part 
of it — which his father had promised the Romans, when 
nearly twenty years before they had made him king 
rather than entrust so rich a province to a citizen. Pto- 
lemy's minister asked for time, and Caesar landed, arrayed 
in all the splendours of a consul ; but this affronted th* 
Alexandrians, who thought it a sign that he was come D 
take away their independence ; and they made a riot h 
the streets, in which some of his men were killed. The, 
together with the smallness of his force, encouraged tie 
Egyptian court to insult him, by serving his troops w£h 
musty wheat, and providing only earthenware disfes, 
instead of silver or gold, for his own table. He saw tiat 
if he let himself fall into contempt at this servile cairt 
the fate of Pompey might soon be his ; and he thereore 
boldly declared himself to be come with all the auth'rity 
of Rome to decide between Ptolemy and Cleopatra and 
summoned them both to plead their claims befor his 
tribunal. Ptolemy came ; but his party were so strcig in 
Alexandria that Cleopatra could not venture in openly ; 
whereupon she caused herself to be rolled up in a >ale of 
carpet and carried into Caesar's apartments. Sie was 



WORTHIES. 393 

the most magnificently beautiful and captivating woman 
of her time, and full of wit and intellect, with the sweetest 
of voices ; and Caesar was at once amused with her 
stratagem, enchanted with her beauty, and pleased by 
her confidence in him. He at once became her advo- 
cate, and insisted on her brother taking her back to 
share his throne. 

Ptolemy was so much in his hands as to have no choice 
but outward submission ; but Cleopatra, with her over- 
weening nature, was much hated both by her brother and 
the Alexandrians, and in the midst of the festival of re- 
conciliation Caesar's barber discovered a plot against his 
life. Moreover, a tremendous tumult broke out in the 
streets, Caesar's soldiers were attacked, and his danger 
was so great, that the only chance he saw for safety was 
to make his way to the little island called Pharos, from 
the lighthouse on it, there defend himself till reinforce- 
ments should arrive from Rome, and to burn the Egyptian 
fleet to prevent their arrival from being obstructed. In 
this he succeeded ; he fought his way with his veterans 
through the streets, setting fire to the buildings near and 
the ships in the harbour, and safely reached Pharos, 
where he endured a sort of siege for many days, and once 
was so hard pressed that he was obliged to throw off his 
cloak and swim for his life among a shower of darts, 
which compelled him often to hide his head under water, 
though he kept the hand that held his papers safe above 
it all the time. 

At last, however, he consented to an accommodation, 
and Ptolemy undertook to reign jointly with his sister 
but this had scarcely been arranged, when one of the 
allies for whom Caesar had sent advanced upon Egypt, 
and Ptolemy marched out against him. In the battle 
that ensued the young king perished while trying to 
cross the Nile, and Egypt was at Caesar's feet. He made 



394 THE BOOK OF 

Cleopatra queen, with a much younger brother associated 
with her, and, having arranged matters at Alexandria, set 
forth for Asia Minor, where the king of Pontus was 
trying to make head against the Republic. Him Caesar 
met and defeated at Zela ; and the whole of Syria lay 
so completely at his disposal, that his despatch to the 
Senate ran in these three famous words, Veni, vidi, vici. 
" I came, I saw, I conquered." He collected huge sums 
of money from every part of the East, and then sailed 
back to Rome, but only to be freshly appointed Dictator, 
and to collect troops with whom to pursue the last rem- 
nants of the hostile force which he had beaten at 
Pharsalia. 

These had r as has been already said, gathered together 
at Corfu, whence Scipio, their consul, had gone with the 
larger part of their army to Numidia, where Pompey's 
party had been successful. Cato and Cicero waited for 
further tidings, and when Pompey's wife and son brought 
the fatal tidings of his death, Cicero gave up the contest 
and sailed back to Italy ; but Cato resolved to hold by 
the remains of his party, and be staunch to the old 
Republic to the last. So he sailed for Cyrene, but the city 
closed its gates against him ; and he then proceeded along 
the coast until the storms of winter made it impossible to 
proceed by sea, and he was obliged to march for seven 
days along the desert, in exceeding distress from parching 
heat, drought, and the number of dangerous serpents. It 
was a wonderful instance of Roman patience and resolution 
that the whole army, defeated and dejected as they were, 
implicitly throughout their hardships obeyed this upright 
man of peace, whose only claim to their obedience was 
from his having borne the office of praetor, or judge, and 
who wept at bloodshed. He endured all the privations to 
the utmost, never mounting a horse through all the weary 
march ; and indeed, in token of mourning, since the battle 



WORTHIES. 395 

of Pharsalia he had never reclined on a couch at meals 
nor lain down in bed. 

Thus in the spring of 47 he joined the body of his 
party at Utica, and there found Scipio, the late consul, 
and a force that altogether amounted to twelve legions, 
and a Numidian prince named Juba, who was apparently 
friendly. The Romans wanted Cato to take the com- 
mand ; but he would not be put over the head of a man of 
consular rank, though he did all he could to prepare for 
Caesar's attack, and was of opinion that it would be best 
to cross the sea, and try to raise Italy against Caesar 
while he was still in the East. 

He could not prevail, and in the last month of 47 Caesar 
was in Africa, and landed with 3,000 foot and 150 horse 
near Adrumentum. One battle he fought without much 
success, though with great valour, before his reinforce- 
ments came up, and he remained training his men to meet 
the Numidians and to encounter their elephants, until 
the April of 46, when the decisive battle was fought near 
Thapsus, and a most frightful slaughter was made by 
Caesar's ferocious Tenth Legion, from which Juba and 
Scipio barely escaped with their lives. 

Cato was not in the battle, but was garrisoning Utica. 
When the tidings of the defeat arrived, he remained per- 
fectly calm and resolute ; but as it became evident that 
there was no hope left for his cause, and that to attempt 
to hold out the city would only be to sacrifice so many 
lives, he advised all his friends to embark for Italy, and 
there make their peace with the conqueror. He waited 
till all were gone, and then, not enduring to bend to 
Caesar, or to see the fall of Roman freedom, he slew him- 
self with his own sword ; a death that high-souled hea- 
then did not deem self-murder, but rather a courageous 
effort. The tidings were heard by Caesar with the words, 
" Cato, I envy thee thy death, for thou hast envied me 



396 THE BOOK OF 

the saving of thy life." He spared Cato's son, and burnt 
all the papers he found, unread, not choosing to know 
the bitterness of his enemies against him. 

Scipio and Juba both died by suicide ; and Caesar had 
entirely subdued all opposition. No one, save Pompey's 
cousin, in Spain, dared to raise a hand against him, and he 
was the master of the Roman world. In expectation of 
his return, and in gratitude to the man who never slew a 
foe save on the battle-field, the Senate invented unpre- 
cedented honours for the triumph that had been due to 
him ever since the conquest of Gaul. There was to be a 
forty days' holiday ; he was to be Dictator for ten years, 
censor for three ; was to sit between the consuls in the 
Senate, and his figure in ivory would accompany those of 
the gods in processions ; his statue be engraven, " Caesar, 
the Demigod.' 7 He asked for four triumphs : for his 
victories over the Gauls, the Egyptians, the Syrians, and 
the Numidians ; for the Spanish conquest was gone out 
of date, and the battle of Pharsalia had been with Roman 
citizens : but each of the others was celebrated on a dif- 
ferent day, with an interval between. 

His triumph was noted for his car being drawn by 
white horses, which were usually granted only to the gods, 
and had never been used by any general save Camillus. 
On the first day his chariot broke down, and, perhaps, 
this gave him an impression that a mortal might not assume 
divine honours, for he caused the word demigod to be 
erased from his statue. In the triumphs were led in 
chains the gallant Gaul, Vercingetorix, Arsinoe, the 
sister of Cleopatra, and the young son of Juba, with many 
other noble captives. All were spared save Vercingetorix, 
for whom, though the noblest of all, the Romans seem to 
have had no pity. Afterwards there were prodigious 
banquets, provided with the choicest wines, and the 
favourite dainties, among which were 6,000 lampreys. At 



WORTHIES. 397 

one of these there were 22,000 tables, each table having 
three couches, on each of which, according to Roman 
fashion, three guests would recline, making a total of 
198,000 ! He also entertained the people with shows of 
wild beasts and gladiators on a greater scale than ever 
before ; feeding their corrupt craving for idly looking 
on at the horrid scenes of bloodshed that he had too 
much taste to admire, and dazzling them by his mag- 
nificence. He even covered the circus with an awning 
made of silk, though this material was extremely costly, 
and hardly attainable even for dresses. He did a better 
work by erecting a new and beautiful forum, or market- 
place, with colonnades of marble pillars, arranged for all 
the purposes of public assembly, and which ever after 
bore his name as Forum Julii. This great work was, 
however, only just set in hand when he set off for Spain 
to put down the resistance that the two sons of Pompey 
were fruitlessly prolonging in the mountains, not out of 
zeal for the old Republic, but out of revenge for their 
father's death. The elder brother, Cnaeus, was a ferocious 
and violent man, and the Spanish nature being always 
cruel, it was a terrible and savage war of butchery and 
retaliation, and it was well when it came to a crisis in 
the battle of Munda. The Pompeians fought well, and 
Caesar was in so much danger, that he called out to ask 
his soldiers, " whether they meant to deliver him into 
the hands of boys?" and when by thus shaming them 
he had won the day, he said that he had often fought for 
victory, but never before for his life. Cnaeus Pompeius 
was killed by the pursuers, but his brother Sextus 
escaped, and lived the life of an outlaw among the robber 
tribes upon the hills. 

And now Caesar had reached the summit of his glory, 
and had put down all opposition. He was all, and more 
than all, that a Roman citizen could become, and there 



398 THE BOOK OF 

was no one left to dispute his will. The enemies 
who had neither perished in battle nor by their own 
despair were left absolutely unmolested, and were, as 
he trusted, disarmed by his clemency; while those who 
had regarded him with dread as an unprincipled ad- 
venturer might, he had every reason to hope, have come 
to perceive that the whole constitution had become so 
rotten that his present authority was absolutely necessary 
for the reformations that must be carried out. 

To these then he applied himself, and many of his 
regulations were wise and useful ; but as they chiefly re- 
garded Roman politics, it may be better not to dwell on 
them. Others showed the greatness of his mind — such 
as the endeavouring to obtain a perfect map of the 
Roman empire, and that reform of the calendar which 
we still profit by. This he carried out as Pontifex Maxi- 
mus, since as chief priest of Rome he had authority to 
fix the recurring festival-days. He had studied astronomy 
during his stay in Egypt, and had grasped the right way 
of arranging the computation of time so as to allow for 
the odd hours that the earth takes above the 365 days of 
its course round the sun. All he did was the work of a 
great man, and for the good of the Romans, but still he 
felt that, though many were dazzled by his fame and many 
more courted him for his power, the best and noblest of 
the citizens viewed him with distrust and displeasure. 
His holding a triumph when he came back from Spain 
gave these Romans much displeasure, since a civil war 
was shame, not glory. Still he tried to conciliate all 
men, and there is a curious account in one of Cicero's 
letters of a friendly visit that Caesar paid him at his 
villa, and the agreeable conversation, wit, and liveliness 
that seasoned the excellent dinner ; but altogether, before 
the first year of Caesar's undisputed power was over, he 
was weary of it and of the men around him, and was 



WORTHIES. 399 

dreaming of the camp, where as general his will was 
law, and of the gorgeous East which he had barely seen, 
and where Alexander had triumphed. 

Cleopatra with her Greek beauty and wit and volup- 
tuous Eastern splendour had completely captivated him. 
She had followed him to Rome, and he longed to cast 
aside the quiet decorous Roman lady whom only as a 
citizen he could marry, and enjoy the intoxicating mag- 
nificence and luxury of the East with the Egyptian queen. 
Plans for marching upon Parthia in the very track of 
Alexander haunted his fancy, and he began to provide 
for the government of Rome in his absence, by appoint- 
ing consuls and praetors for several years onwards ; but 
this was after all an insecure arrangement, and he began, 
it would seem, to listen to the whispers of his friends, 
especially the former tribune Mark Antony, who advised 
that he should endeavour to reign as a king. 

This would enable him to rule by deputy in his absence, 
and to transmit his power to his great-nephew, who was 
now his nearest relation, and a youth of delicate health 
but of great promise. If Caesar listened to the proposal, 
it was most secretly and cautiously; but attempts were 
made by his friends to sound the temper of the people, 
who regarded that word king with a violent prejudice, 
though they would endure the exercise of far greater 
authority than that name necessarily implied. 

A laurel wreath fastened to a diadem was by way of 
experiment placed on Caesar's statue in the forum ; it 
was indignantly torn down by the tribunes, and the 
people applauded. Again, on the occasion of a pro- 
cession through the streets, some voices hailed him as 
king, but no one took up the cry, and such angry glances 
were cast towards him that he was forced to exclaim, in 
a tone of reproof, "Not king, but Caesar !" while the 
tribunes seized those who had uttered the obnoxious 



400 THE BOOK OF 

words and * threw them into prison. For this Caesar 
rebuked them, saying that it was bringing suspicion 
on him to punish a foolish cry so severely as an offence 
against the state ; but when one of his own party declared 
that they ought to be put to death, he interfered on their 
behalf. 

Still the attempt was renewed. The 15th of February, 
with its strange wild festival of the Lupercalia, came round. 
It had once been a shepherd's feast, in the old simple 
ages, and the rude peasant ceremonies still survived in 
the cultivated state of Rome, just as they had been 
carried on when the rough rustics of the Campagna 
really believed that the fruitfulness of their flocks could 
thus be obtained from the gods ; and, moreover, the 
popular mind connected the name with that of the she- 
wolf {luftd) which had nurtured Romulus and Remus. 
The place of celebration was the Lupercal grove, where 
the twins were said to have been found ; and Caesar, as 
chief pontiff, sat in his golden chair to preside over the 
ceremonies, which to him as well as to most educated 
Romans were vain and ridiculous, and only kept up 
because the whole state system hinged on them and 
they kept the people occupied. 

First, at the altar in the grove were sacrificed two 
goats and two dogs ; and Antony, who was one of the 
Lupercal priests, touched the brow of each of two young 
men with a sword dipped in the blood, while others 
washed the spot off with wool and milk, and the 
young men, according to the strange rite, burst out 
laughing. There was then a feast, after which the 
skins of the goats were cut into strips and wrapped 
round the bodies of the Luperci, who then, without any 
other clothing, took the remaining thongs of skin in their 
hands and rushed along the different streets, striking at 
whatever came in their way, as a sort of purification and 



WORTHIES. 401 

omen of good, so that all who were thus touched would 
prove fruitful. 

Such a half-savage rustic revel was in strange keeping 
with the cultured city of Rome ; but Antony, while per- 
forming, his apparently mad dance, had a purpose in 
view, and as he darted up to Csesar with his thong of 
goat's hide, he snatched from under the strip that girt 
him the fillet of an Eastern king, and held it out to 
Caesar, calling it the gift of the Roman people. A few 
hands were clapped ; but when Csesar put the ensign 01 
royalty away, there was a burst of applause, and again 
he was forced to repeat, " I am no king ; the king of the 
Romans is Jupiter ! u and he sent the diadem to be hung 
up in the temple in the Capitol. 

These experiments embittered the mind of the remnant 
of the old party more than ever, and a plot began to be 
formed against Caesar. The chief conspirator was Caius 
Cassius Longinus, an able officer, whom Caesar had pro- 
moted, but whom he always regarded with a certain 
distrust and doubt. " I like not such lean, pale, eager 
men," he said ; and Cassius, always brooding over the 
wrongs of the republic, was assuredly one of the most 
dangerous men in Rome. Marcus Junius Brutus was 
the person to whom he first addressed himself. He 
was the son of Cato's half-sister Servilia, the lady whose 
love-letter to Caesar had shamed her high-minded brother 
in the Senate, and he had grown up with a fervent ad- 
miration for his uncle, and a great desire to imitate him, 
and he was, moreover, the husband of Cato's brave 
daughter Porcia. He had, however, like Cassius, held 
office under Caesar, and endured his rule with a sullen 
acquiescence ; but when the hateful title of king appeared 
likely to be revived, his indignation was such as to make 
him ready to listen to the numerous whispers that called 
on him to remember how his ancestor had been the prime 
D D 



402 THE BOOK OF 

mover in the expulsion of the cruel kings of the house of 
Tarquin and the establishment of that grand republic 
which Caesar was overthrowing. These were the fore- 
most in the plot, and with them were joined fourteen 
more, of whom the most notable was Brutus's. cousin, 
Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, who had served under 
Caesar in the civil war, had been treated as one of his 
most trusted friends, and had just received an appoint- 
ment to the great province of Gaul, so that it seems 
almost impossible to imagine his motive for joining in 
the horrible conspiracy for murdering Caesar at the 
meeting of the Senate on the Ides of March, the 15th, 
when it was expected that a proposal would be made to 
permit Caesar to assume the dress and title of king, not 
in Rome, but in the Eastern provinces. Many may have 
known or guessed at the scheme — Porcia certainly did, 
and being hurt at her husband's not thinking her to be 
trusted with a secret, she pierced herself through with 
a dagger, and showed the wound to her husband some 
time after as a proof that she was able to hold her peace. 
Probably her father's stern upright faith would have de- 
nounced the project, and the conspirators durst not even 
mention it to Cicero ; but Porcia fell into an agony of 
excitement and suspense, though she kept her counsel. 

Others would fain have sent warnings to Caesar without 
betraying from whom they came, and many such reached 
him, but he had steeled himself against them. His 
nature was fearless, and he had escaped untouched from 
a long course of perils, besides which he had always said 
that the only way to enjoy life was to banish all fear of 
death, and he persisted in walking about the city entirely 
unarmed and unguarded. He was heard to say, " I have 
lived long enough for nature and for fame ; " for he was 
past fifty and dreaded the approach of old age, and of 
power and success he had well-nigh had his fill. He had 



WORTHIES. 403 

found that they failed to secure him the cordial approba- 
tion of any man whom he really esteemed, and that all 
that he obtained was the adulation of the selfish and the 
blind adherence of the multitude, whom he was forced to 
gratify with alms and wild-beast shows. No wonder, 
then, that he was really indifferent to life, and thought the 
lengthening of it no boon worth perpetual alarm and 
precaution. A soothsayer told him that the Ides of 
March would be fatal to him, but he paid no attention. 
And when on the previous night, at a supper at a friend's 
house, some one started the question, "What was the 
easiest death to die?" he answered, "The most unex- 
pected." 

However, in the night he was disturbed by the moaning 
of his wife Calpurnia in her sleep, and when in the morn- 
ing she told him of a dreadful dream, and conjured him not 
to stir out of doors, he reluctantly yielded, and was just 
sending to countermand the assembly of the Senate when 
Decimus Brutus, who was the more afraid of delay be- 
cause his cousin Marcus was on the point of betraying 
himself by his nervous agitation, came in and laughed to 
scorn the notion of putting off the Senate for a lady's 
dream, so that Caesar readily called back the bearers of 
his letter and set out for the Senate. On the way a letter 
was handed to him with an entreaty that he would 
instantly read it, but he kept it in his hand as he pro- 
ceeded, and a slave was at that very moment warning 
Calpurnia, having arrived just too late for him. He saw 
the soothsayer in the crowd and good-humouredly said, 
" The Ides of March are come." 

"Yes, Caesar," was the answer, "but they are not past." 
He left his litter, and walked up the steps of the Senate- 
house, while one of the assassins engaged Mark Antony, 
who was a man of great personal strength and warmly 
attached to Caesar, in conversation ; and one of the 



404 THE BOOK OF 

conspirators named Cimber stepped forward to present 
a petition, the others thronging round as if to support 
him. On his refusal, Cimber caught hold of Caesar's toga 
and pulled it over his arms — the concerted signal. Then 
Casca, another conspirator, drawing a small dagger from 
the case meant to hold the iron pen, plunged it into his 
victim's shoulder. Caesar loosed his hand and snatched at 
the dagger, shouting, " What means this ? " And as the rest 
closed in, he struggled stoutly for his life in a manner that 
with one so dexterous and active might have given time for 
Antony and others to come to his help, had he not seen 
Decimus, whom he really loved, among the murderers. 
"Thou, too I" he said, and drew his toga over his face 
without further resistance as the deadly blows fell upon 
him on all sides, till, after staggering a few paces, he fell 
dead at the feet of Pompey's statue. 

It was the 15th of March, B.C. 44, that Julius Caesar 
fell, after having bridged the way between the Roman 
Republic and the Roman Empire. How Antony ad- 
dressed the people over his bier, and stirred their hearts 
by the reading of his will ; how those " who struck the 
foremost man of all this world n stood appalled at their 
own acts, wavered and fell apart ; how Antony and young 
Octavius coalesced against them, and they perished by 
miserable deaths ; how Cicero shone out nobly in this 
time of distress, till he was slain through Antony's spite ; 
how Antony fell under the spells of Cleopatra, and 
finally was ruined by his infatuation for her ; and how 
Octavius triumphed over all enemies, founded the Em- 
pire, and reigned as the peaceful Augustus, it is not 
the part of this narrative to relate. It was in Augustus's 
time that light came into the world, and men ceased 
to live by the old revelation or by heathen guesses at 
truth. Henceforth the time of the Worthies of Judaism 
and Heathenesse was over. We have seen in Joshua the 



WORTHIES. 405 

divinely led Israelite conqueror ; in David the poet king, 
ever pious and devout, though sometimes erring ; in 
Nehemiah the faithful restorer and reformer ; in Judas 
Maccabaeus the heroic champion of his faith and country. 
And, on the other hand, Hector shows the Greek's 
imaginary standard of patriotism in a falling cause ; 
Aristides, and Dentatus, and Scipio simple-hearted 
dutifulness and devotion to the best faith they knew ; 
Xenophon seems to put the Socratic teaching in action ; 
Epaminondas tried to live up to the harmonies of 
Pythagoras ; Alexander's best virtues had been learnt 
from Aristotle, and Cleomenes found strength for his 
reformation in the stern Stoic school ; while the Hero 
whose claim to worthiness is most doubtful of all, and 
whose ambition brought him nothing but weariness and 
distrust, whose clemency could not win hearts, and whose 
beneficence was despised as mere self-seeking, whose 
work was more to destroy than to build up, was the only 
one among them all who was without real faith in aught 
that was unseen, and who entirely disbelieved in a future 
state. 



THE END. 



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